Sir, – Terry Walsh’s letter of July 15th repeats the old story that the Russian word for station, vokzal, derives from London’s Vauxhall Station. In fact, the first station in Russia so termed opened more than a decade before the founding of the London station (1837 versus 1848), and was named after the nearby pleasure garden. The word voksal, echoing Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, had been current for at least 50 years at the time. Why one of London’s drabbest stations should give birth to such a tenacious legend remains a mystery! – Yours, etc,
CATRIONA KELLY,
(Senior Research Fellow,
Trinity College, Cambridge,
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Honorary Professor of Russian and Soviet Culture, University of Cambridge;
Emeritus Professor of Russian, University of Oxford),
Achill Island,
Co Mayo.
