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,
Grá ar an Trá: What is the point of Gráinne Seoige in this incoherent pudding of a series?
Ireland is emerging from winter, but maybe hold off mowing your lawn for now
What’s a phage and why might your body be hosting thousands of them?
Author Torrey Peters: ‘Admitting to any sexual aspect to a trans identity can be politically dangerous. But I refuse to be silenced by bigots’
Honorary Professor of Russian and Soviet Culture, University of Cambridge;
Emeritus Professor of Russian, University of Oxford),
Achill Island,
Co Mayo.
