The Central Railway Terminal is situated in the ZasOsnensky district of the city. In 1884, Bunin, a student of YelEts gymnasium, together with his parents saw off his brother YUly here, who was under arrest.

‘We went to the train station to bid farewell to him. I think I was mostly shocked by the fact that when we arrived at the station, we had to go to the third-class waiting room, where my brother, under the supervision of the gendarmes, was waiting for the train to leave, as if he no longer dared to stay with decent, free people, being deprived of the freedom to choose and decide, of the possibility to drink tea or eat pies with them’.

Bunin I.A. ‘Arseniev’s life’

Ivan was coming at the train station in the next few days.

“I was killing time, wandered around the city, in the suburbs, in ZarEchye I was watching the trains passing the station, in the hustle and bustle of arrivals and departures, I envied those who hurriedly and excitedly were getting on the long-distance trains, I got frozen when a huge doorman wearing a long livery went out into the middle of the waiting room and shouted with his majestic bass, with a threatening, severe sadness, where and what train was going to…”

A very interesting and detailed description of the railway terminal and a restaurant at Yelets station was given in the journal “Passenger”s Companion” dated 1899. In particular: “Yelets, 2nd class station. A huge building of the passenger railway terminal was built in 1899, it was intended to serve the two lines of the South-Eastern Railways: OrlOvsko-GrYAzinskaya and YelEts-ValUyskaya… A big, shared use waiting room, about 980 square feet, for 1st and 2nd class passengers, and a buffet-dining room for class 1 and 2 passengers, 2,156 square feet. A large, separated 3rd class waiting room, about 3,185 square feet; men”s and ladies” restroom, post and telegraph office, buffet with hot and cold dishes, alcoholic beverages, tea and coffee, book and newspaper rack. 18 different passenger trains depart and arrive daily from and to this station.’ Abduil SinYAyev, who was the owner of the station buffet in 1911-1914, was a true go-getter. This can be concluded from the below description of the daily routine in 1916:

‘An experienced train driver, especially if he knows well a particular leg of the route, can do many things. The train stop at Yelets station lasts only 10 minutes, which is not enough for the passengers to have dinner. But sometimes the waiter would run to the train and passed a silver tray to the train driver: a glass of vodka and a sandwich with black caviar: Vasily Timofeevich! That”s for you! “From Abdulla Mahmudovich! (all buffet owners were Tatars from Kazan) with a request not to hurry up at this stop, please delay the departure a little bit!” - “Tell Abdulka, ok, I will” Then he said to the assistant: “Come to the station duty officer, tell him we need some more time to lubricate the bearings.” And the train stop lasts for 25 minutes, and 3 individual dinners are served for the train driver and his assistant. The timetable will be complied with, even sooner than the train reaches GryAzi, Vasily Timofeevich knows all slopes, all turns and climbs…’

Solzhenitsyn A.I. ‘The Red wheel’