One of the Communist regime’s enduring legacies, the Moscow Metro is today bigger and busier than New York’s subway and London’s underground put together.

Some history…

Although plans for its construction were drafted in 1902 and once more in 1912, years of delay were incurred due to the outbreak of WWI, then the revolution.

Eventually, construction started in 1931 and only lasted four years, despite the challenges of tunneling under the city and its rivers, as well as working with a limited supply of trained labor. The first line, the Sokolnicheskaya Line, with its mere 13 stations, was ceremoniously inaugurated on May 15, 1935.

Since then, the metro has become an ever-expanding network of 11 lines and over 160 stations, transporting over eight million commuters every day.

Often referred to as ‘the people’s palaces’, many of the stations are works of art with their stylish designs and sumptuous use of marble, statues, mosaics and illuminated with imposing chandeliers.

Built during Stalin’s rule, these metro stations were supposed to display the best of Soviet architecture and design and show how privileged the lifestyle of the Soviet people was.

Remarkably, these luxuriant spaces were designed to double-up as bomb shelters and came in use during WWII not only as such, but also for important political and tactical meetings.

The Chistiye Prudy station, for instance, was used as the hub for Supreme Command HQ and the Soviet Army General Staff.

The Moscow metro has won the «Golden Transmission Tower» federal contest as «2009 Most Energy-Efficient Enterprise».

Some must-visit stations….

• Mayakovskaya Station, with a ceiling of Socialist Realist mosaics
• Ploshchad Revolyutsii, with bronze sculptures of Red Army soldiers
• Komsomolskaya, a more recent addition with a Russian history lesson in mosaics near the Circle Line platforms.
• Metro Museum at the Sportivnaya Metro station, which displays interesting exhibits such as a driver’s cab and photographs from the 1930s showing cheerful members of the Komsomol (the youth wing of the Communist Party).

Some interesting facts and figures…

• The Metro system used to be named after Lazar Kaganovich, one of Stalin’s most trusted advisors and an instrumental figure in the construction of the metro until 1955, when it was renamed the V. I. Lenin Moscow Metropolitan Railway.
• The direction of the train can be determined by the gender of the announcer. On the ring line, a male voice indicates clockwise travel and a female voice counter-clockwise whereas on the radial lines, a male voice will announce stations heading toward the center of Moscow and a female-voiced when heading the other way.
• The deepest station of the Moscow underground is ‘Park Pobedy’ which lies 84 meters (275ft) below ground and has the longest escalator, measuring 126 m (413ft).
• The longest and shortest journeys are respectively between ‘Krylatskoe’ – ‘Strogino’ (6625m/4.1miles) and ‘Delovoy Centre’ – ‘Mezhdunarodnaya’ (497m/0.3mile).
• The Moscow Metro train is identical to those used in Budapest, Prague, Sofia and Warsaw as well as in St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Minsk, Kiev and Kharkov.
• The Moscow underground has 4 510 train cars.
• Ploschad Revolutsii (Revolution Square) is remarkable for its 76 bronze sculptures of workers, peasants, sailors, soldiers and other proletarians who had a role in Russian history. There is a legend that by rubbing the nose of the bronze dog of the Frontier Guard, you are guaranteed luck in passing an exam. This leads to a regular influx of students around the statue during the exams periods throughout the year.
• The Volokolamskaya station on the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line as well as the Delovoy Center and Park Pobedy stations, both on the Solntsevskaya line, are abandoned and no longer in service.
• It costs an average of $77.1million to build 1 km (0.62miles) of Moscow Metro.
• Throughout its use as a bomb shelter in WW2, 213 babies were born in the various stations.

Watch our video for further tips on public transport in Moscow:

For further information about life in Moscow please visit out Moscow City Guide, which includes interview footage with expats, doctors, head teachers, and other service providers; links to other resources on the web and interactive neighborhood maps, detailing resources useful to expats for life their new life in Moscow.

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References:
Moscow Metro Official Site
Trip Advisor
Anaga
Soviet History
Russian Vast
Urban Rail

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