How Vauxhall became Vokzal

QUESTION Does the Russian word for railway station come from Vauxhall in London?

THE name Vauxhall dates back to the 13th century, when Sir Falkes de Breaute built Falkes’ Hall on land south of the Thames. Over time, the name was corrupted to Fox Hall and then Vauxhall.

A pleasure garden, where people went to dance and watch boxing matches and the circus, was established on this site in 1660.

In 1776, Michael Maddox, an English entrepreneur, tightrope walker and theatre manager, was given permission to establish a theatre in Moscow. It was restricted to serious plays, so he offered lighter fare in his pleasure garden, which he named Vauxhall after the one in London.

Shortly afterwards, a Vauxhall pleasure garden was established in the St Petersburg suburbs.

Maddox wasn’t the first to copy the name — the New York Vauxhall Gardens opened in 1767.

St Petersburg pleasure garden became known as Vokzal in Russian. In 1837, the first Russian railway ran from St Petersburg to the pleasure garden and the station was called Vokzal.

This then became the generic word for all Russian stations.

Andrew Galin, Birmingham.

QUESTION Many action films feature skyscrapers. Do high-rises feature in novels?

FURTHER to the earlier answer about the novel that inspired the film Die Hard, Terminal World by sci-fi author Alastair Reynolds features a massive skyscraper called Spearpoint.

This atmosphere-piercing spire city is home to a number of semiautonomous regions.