Have you ever wondered why every train station in the Russian-speaking world is called "vokzal"? Me neither. But it is an interesting story, since Вокзал (Vokzal) does not really sound Russian. And there is reason behind it, it was not originally a Russian word.
There was a myth that Russian delegation in 1840 visited London to study the railway network, they were especially impressed by Vauxhall train station (or in a different version of the story they misunderstood that Vauxhall is the name of the place, not a term for a train station building) that later it was adapted in Russia to call all of their train stations.
This story is partially true - there was a place called Vauxhall, there was a train station there, there was a Russian delegation in 1840, and they did visit the Vauxhall train station, but the first Russian train station was built in 1837.
So was all of it just a myth? Yes and no, it was more of a coincidence than a myth. In 1766 a British entrepreneur Michael Maddox arrived in Russia as an impresario, soon became quite active as a theatre manager in Moscow and Sankt Petersburg, co-creating the predecessor of the famous Bolshoi Theatre. Maddox was also behind building in Moscow a pleasure garden complex, inspired by similar Vauxhall Gardens, where theater and opera shows took place during the summer. To bring a part of England to his new homeland, he called those gardens Vauxhall, which was later Russified into foksal, voksal and finally vokzal (Вокзал).
In 1837 the first railway was built in Russia, from the tzar’s palace in Sankt Petersburg to the suburb called Pavlovsk. The terminus station of that line in Pavlovsk was built inside that pleasure garden complex that Maddox called Vauxhall, so vokzal became the name for that station. And this way Vauxhall did gave name to every train station in the Russian-speaking world, but it was Vauxhall Gardens, not Vauxhall train station.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Maddox
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