Editing Vauxhall (section)

====In the Russian language====
Competing theories are given as to why the Russian word for a [[central station|central railway station]] is {{lang|ru|[[:ru:вокзал|вокзал]]}} (''vokzal''), which coincides with the canonical 19th-century transliteration of "Vauxhall". It has long been suggested that a Russian delegation visited the area to inspect the construction of the [[London & South Western Railway]] (L&SWR) in 1840, and mistook the name of the station for the generic name of the building type—a "vaux hall", as it were.  This was further embellished into a story that Tsar [[Nicholas I of Russia]], visiting London in 1844, was taken to see the trains at Vauxhall and made the same mistake.  Alternatively, the locality of the L&SWR's original railway terminus, Nine Elms Station, was shown boldly and simply as "Vauxhall" in the 1841 ''[[Bradshaw's Guide|Bradshaw]]'' timetable.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/hantscat/html/h0106442.htm |title=1841 Railway guide for Vauxhall |publisher=Geog.port.ac.uk |date=26 September 2001 |access-date=21 May 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305013633/http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/hantscat/html/h0106442.htm |archive-date=5 March 2012 |df=dmy-all }}</ref>

Both these explanations can probably be dismissed, since the [[Tsarskoye Selo Railway|first public railway in Russia]] had already been built by 1837.  This line ran from [[Saint Petersburg]] via [[Tsarskoye Selo]] to [[Pavlovsk Palace]], where extensive [[pleasure gardens]] had earlier been established. In 1838, a music and entertainment pavilion was constructed at the railway terminus. This pavilion was called the ''Vokzal'' in homage to the [[Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens]] in London. The name soon came to be applied to the station itself, which was the gateway that most visitors used to enter the gardens. It later came to mean any substantial railway station building (a different Russian word, станция (''stantsiya''), is used for minor stations).

The word ''voksal'' (воксал) had been known in the Russian language with the meaning of "amusement park" long before the 1840s and may be found, e.g. in the poetry of [[Aleksandr Pushkin]]: {{lang|ru|На гуляньях иль в воксалах / Легким зефиром летал}} ("To Natalie" (1813): "At [[fête]]s or in ''voksals'', /I've been flitting like a gentle [[Zephirus|Zephyrus]]" [<small>here "Zephyrus" is an [[allegory]] of a gentle, warm and pleasant wind </small>]) According to [[Vasmer]], the word is first attested in the ''[[Saint Petersburg Vedomosti]]'' for 1777 in the form фоксал, which may reflect the earlier English spelling of Fox Hall/Faukeshall. Englishman [[Michael Maddox]] established a Vauxhall Gardens in the Saint Petersburg suburbs (Pavlovsk) in 1783, with pleasure gardens, a small theatre/concert hall, and places for refreshment. Archdeacon [[William Coxe (historian)|William Coxe]] describes the place as a "sort of Vauxhall" in that year, in his ''Travels into Russia''.