Lonely Planet India – August 2019

PHOTOGRAPHS: BWZENITH/GETTY IMAGES

EXPLORE

Moscow’smetrois at oncea historylessonandanartmuseum(notto mentiona ratherefficientsystemof transportation).

Thedesignof its stationsandthedirectionof its expansiontella storyaboutMoscowduringthe20thand21stcenturies.

Evenmoreintriguingaretheartworkandarchitecturaldesignthatcharacterisethestations,manyof whichareconstructed

outof granite,andmarbleandadornedwithmosaics,frescoesandbas-reliefs.

TRAVELICON

Moscow metro

Ploshchad

Revoly utsii

metro, with its

76 bronze

figures

After Joseph Stalin

announced plans for the

construction of the metro

in the early 1930s, some

10,000 members of the

Soviet youth league (or

Komsomol) contributed

their time to help build it.

The metro opened on

May 15, 1935, at 7am.

Thousands of people

spent the night at the

doors of the station

so they might ride the

first train on the red line.

The lighting in many

stations is dim and

subdued – it was

designed as such

to add atmosphere,

as well as to be efficient.

The metro has some of the

deepest stations in the

world, owing to the city’s

swampy subsoil.

Park Pobedy station

is 84m below ground,

and has the longest

escalators in Europe.

Every day, almost nine

million people travel

on the Moscow metro.

14 August 2019