resolution to construct the Moscow Metro|alt=Typewritten document on yellowing paper, with handwritten notes The first plans for a metro system in Moscow date back to the
Russian Empire but were postponed by
World War I, the
October Revolution and the
Russian Civil War. In 1923, the Moscow City Council formed the Underground Railway Design Office at the Moscow Board of Urban Railways. It carried out preliminary studies, and by 1928 had developed a project for the first route from Sokolniki to the city centre. At the same time, an offer was made to the German company Siemens Bauunion to submit its own project for the same route. In June 1931, the decision to begin construction of the Moscow Metro was made by the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In January 1932 the plan for the first lines was approved, and on 21 March 1933 the Soviet government approved a plan for 10 lines with a total route length of . The first lines were built using the Moscow general plan designed by
Lazar Kaganovich, along with his project managers (notably Ivan M. Kuznetsov and, later, Isaac Y. Segal) in the 1930s–1950s, and the Metro was named after him until 1955
(). Partly because of this connection, the design of
Gants Hill tube station, which was completed in 1947, is reminiscent of a Moscow Metro station. Indeed, Holden's homage to Moscow has been described as a gesture of gratitude for the USSR's helpful role in
The Second World War. Soviet workers did the labour and the art work, but the main engineering designs, routes, and construction plans were handled by specialists recruited from London Underground. The British called for tunnelling instead of the "
cut-and-cover" technique, the use of
escalators instead of lifts, the routes and the design of the rolling stock. The paranoia of the
NKVD was evident when this secret police organisation arrested numerous British engineers for
espionage because they gained an in-depth knowledge of the city's physical layout. Engineers for the
Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company (Metrovick) were given a
show trial and deported in 1933, ending the role of British business in the USSR.
First four stages of construction The first line was opened to the public on 15 May 1935 at 07:00 am. It was long and included 13 stations. The day was celebrated as a technological and ideological victory for
socialism (and, by extension,
Stalinism). The designers consulted with employees of the
London Underground during the initial planning phase, and much of the engineering design work was done by British engineers. An estimated 285,000 people rode the Metro at its debut, and its design was greeted with pride; street celebrations included parades, plays and concerts. The
Bolshoi Theatre presented a choral performance by 2,200 Metro workers; 55,000 coloured posters (lauding the Metro as the busiest and fastest in the world) and 25,000 copies of "Songs of the Joyous Metro Conquerors" were distributed. The Moscow Metro averaged and had a top speed of . In comparison,
New York City Subway trains averaged a slower and had a top speed of . The latter branch was extended westwards to a new station (
Kiyevskaya) in March 1937, the first Metro line crossing the
Moskva River over the
Smolensky Metro Bridge. The second stage was completed before the
war. In March 1938, the Arbatskaya branch was split and extended to the
Kurskaya station (now the dark-blue
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line). In September 1938, the
Gorkovskaya Line opened between
Sokol and
Teatralnaya. Here the architecture was based on that of the most popular stations in existence (Krasniye Vorota, Okhotnyi Ryad and Kropotkinskaya); while following the popular art-deco style, it was merged with socialist themes. The first
deep-level column station Mayakovskaya was built at the same time. Building work on the third stage was delayed (but not interrupted) during
World War II, and two Metro sections were put into service;
Teatralnaya–
Avtozavodskaya (three stations, crossing the Moskva River through a deep tunnel) and
Kurskaya–
Partizanskaya (four stations) were inaugurated in 1943 and 1944 respectively. War motifs replaced socialist visions in the architectural design of these stations. During the
Siege of Moscow in the fall and winter of 1941, Metro stations were used as air-raid shelters; the
Council of Ministers moved its offices to the
Mayakovskaya platforms, where Stalin made public speeches on several occasions. The
Chistiye Prudy station was also walled off, and the headquarters of the Air Defence established there. After the war ended in 1945, construction began on the fourth stage of the Metro, which included the
Koltsevaya Line, a deep part of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line from
Ploshchad Revolyutsii to
Kievskaya and a surface extension to
Pervomaiskaya during the early 1950s. The decoration and design characteristic of the Moscow Metro is considered to have reached its zenith in these stations. The
Koltsevaya Line was first planned as a line running under the
Garden Ring, a wide avenue encircling the borders of Moscow's city centre. The first part of the line – from
Park Kultury to
Kurskaya (1950) – follows this avenue. Plans were later changed and the northern part of the ring line runs outside the Sadovoye Koltso, thus providing service for seven (out of nine) rail terminals. The next part of the Koltsevaya Line opened in 1952 (Kurskaya–
Belorusskaya), and in 1954 the ring line was completed.
Stalinist ideals in Metro's history When the Metro opened in 1935, it immediately became the centrepiece of the transportation system (as opposed to horse-carried barrows still widely used in 1930s Moscow). It also became the prototype, the vision for future Soviet large-scale technologies. The artwork of the 13 original stations became nationally and internationally famous. For example, the
Sverdlov Square subway station featured porcelain bas-reliefs depicting the daily life of the Soviet peoples, and the bas-reliefs at the Dynamo Stadium sports complex glorified sports and physical prowess on the powerful new
"Homo Sovieticus" (Soviet man). The metro was touted as the symbol of the new social order—a sort of Communist cathedral of engineering modernity. station,
Line 2. Opened in 1938 (the second stage) station,
Line 3. Opened in 1944 (the third stage) The Metro was also iconic for showcasing
Socialist Realism in public art. The method was influenced by
Nikolay Chernyshevsky,
Lenin's favorite 19th-century
nihilist, who stated that "art is no useful unless it serves politics". • Socialist Realism was in fact a method, not exactly a style. With their reflective marble walls, high ceilings and grand chandeliers, many Moscow Metro stations have been likened to an "artificial underground sun". This palatial underground environment Damsky recognized the importance of efficiency, as well as the potential for light as an expressive form. His team experimented with different materials (most often cast bronze, aluminum, sheet brass, steel, and milk glass) and methods to optimize the technology.
Nikita Khrushchev's era of cost cutting During the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, the architectural extravagance of new Metro stations was decisively rejected on the orders of
Nikita Khrushchev. He had a preference for a utilitarian "minimalism"-like approach to design, similar to
Brutalism style. The idea behind the rejection was similar to one used to create
Khrushchyovkas: cheap yet easily mass-produced buildings. Stations of his era, as well as most 1970s stations, were simple in design and style, with walls covered with identical square ceramic tiles. Even decorations at the Metro stations almost finished at the time of the ban (such as
VDNKh and
Alexeyevskaya) got their final decors simplified: VDNKh's arcs/portals, for example, got plain green paint to contrast with well-detailed decorations and pannos around them. A typical layout of the cheap shallow-dug metro station (which quickly became known as
Sorokonozhka – "centipede", from early designs with 40 concrete columns in two rows) was developed for all new stations, and the stations were built to look almost identical, differing from each other only in colours of the marble and ceramic tiles. Most stations were built with simpler, cheap technology; this resulted in
utilitarian design being flawed in some ways. Some stations such as adjacent
Rechnoi Vokzal and
Vodny Stadion or sequiential
Leninsky Prospect,
Akadmicheskaya,
Profsoyuznaya and
Novye Cheryomushki would have a similar look due to the extensive use of same-sized white or off-white ceramic tiles with hard-to-feel differences. Walls with cheap ceramic tiles were susceptible to train-related vibration: some tiles would eventually fall off and break. It was not always possible to replace the missing tiles with the ones of the exact color and tone, which eventually led to
variegated parts of the walls.
Metro stations of late USSR The contrasting style gap between the powerfully decorated stations of Moscow's center and the spartan-looking stations of the 1960s was eventually filled. In the mid-1970s the architectural extravagance was partially restored. However, the newer design of shallow "centipede" stations (now with 26 columns, more widely spaced) continued to dominate. For example,
Kaluzhskaya "centipede" station from 1974 (adjacent to
Novye Cheryomushki station) features non-flat tiles (with 3D effect utilized), and
Medvedkovo from 1978 features complex decorations. 1971 station
Kitay-Gorod ("Ploshchad Nogina" at the time) features
cross-platform interchange (Line 6 and line 7). Although built without "centipede" design or cheap ceramic tiles, the station utilizes near-
grayscale selection of colors. It is to note the "southbound" and "northbound" halls of the station have identical look.
Babushkinskaya station from 1978 is a no-column station (similar to
Biblioteka Imeni Lenina from 1935). 1983
Chertanovskaya station has resemblance to
Kropotkinskaya (from 1935). Some stations, such as the deep-dug
Shabolovskaya (1980), have the near-tunnel walls decorated with metal sheets, not tiles.
Tyoply Stan features a theme related to the name and the location of the station ("Tyoply Stan" used to literally mean
warm area): its walls are covered in brick-colored ribbed panes, which look like
radiators). Downtown area got such stations as
Borovitskaya (1986), with uncovered red bricks and gray, concrete-like colors accompanying a single gold-plated decorative pane known as "Tree of peoples' of USSR" or additional station hall for
Tretyakovskaya to house
cross-platform interchange system between line 6 and line 8. To this day, Tretyakovskaya metro station consists of two contrasting halls:
brutalistic 1971 hall and custom design hall from 1986 reminiscent of
Tretyakovskaya Galereya museum located within walking distance.
Post-USSR stations of the modern Russian Federation •
Ulitsa Akademika Yangelya station used to feature thick orange
neon lamp-like sodium lights instead of regular white lights. •
Park Pobedy, the deepest station of the Moscow Metro, was built in 2003; it features extensive use of dark orange polished granite. •
Slavyansky Bulvar station utilizes a plant-inspired theme (similar to "
bionic style"). • The sleek variant of aforementioned bionic style is somewhat represented in various Line 10 stations. •
Sretensky Bulvar station of line 10 is decorated with paintings of nearby memorials and locations. •
Strogino station has a theme of huge eye-shaped boundaries for lights; with "eyes" occupying the station's ceiling. •
Troparyovo (2014) features trees made of polished metal. The trees hold the station's diamond-shaped lights. The station, however, is noticeably dim-lit. •
Delovoy Tsentr (2016, MCC, overground station) has green tint. •
Lomonosovsky Prospekt (Line 8A) is decorated with various
equations. •
Olkhovaya (2019) uses other plant-inspired themes (
ольха noun means
alder) with autumn/winter inspired colours. •
Kosino (2019) uses
high-tech style with the addition of thin LED lights. Some bleak, bland-looking "centipedes" like
Akademicheskaya and
Yugo-Zapadnaya have undergone renovations in the 21st century (new blue-striped white walls on Akademicheskaya, aqualine glassy, shiny walls on Yugo-Zapadnaya).
Moscow Central Circle urban railway (Line 14) MCC station A new circle metro line in Moscow was relatively quickly made in the 2010s. The Moscow Central Circle line (Line 14) was opened for use in September 2016 by re-purposing and upgrading the
Maloe ZheleznoDorozhnoe Kol'tso. A proposal to convert that freight line into a
metropolitan railway with frequent passenger service was announced in 2012. The original tracks had been built in pre-revolutionary Moscow decades before the creation of Moscow Metro; the tracks remained in place in one piece as a non-electrified line until the 21st century. Yet the
circle route was never abandoned or cut. New track (along the existing one) was laid and all-new stations were built between 2014 and 2016. MCC's stations got such amenities as
vending machines and free
water closets. Line 14 is operated by
Russian Railways and uses full-sized trains (an idea, somewhat similar to
S-Train). The extra resemblance to an S-Train line is, the 1908 line now connects modern northern residential districts to western and southern
downtown area, with a station adjacent to
Moscow International Business Center. There is a noticeable relief of congestion, decrease in usage of formerly overcrowded
Koltsevaya line since the introduction of MCC. To make line 14 attractive to frequent
Koltsevaya line interchanges users, upgrades over regular comfort of Moscow Metro were made. Use of small laptops/portable video playing devices and food consumption from
tupperwares and
tubs was also improved for Line 14: the trains have small folding tables in the back of nearly every seat, while the seats are facing one direction like in planes or intercity buses - unlike side-against-side sofas typical for Metro. Unlike
MCD lines (D1, D2 etc.) MCC line accepts "unified" tickets and "Troika" cards just like Moscow Metro and buses of Moscow do. Free transfers are permitted between the MCC and the Moscow Metro if the trip before the transfer is less than 90 minutes. It's made possible by using same "
Ediny", literally "unified" tickets instead of printing "paper tickets" used at railroads. • To interchange to line 14 for free, passenger must keep their freshly used ticket after entering Moscow Metro to apply it upon entering any line 14 station (and vice versa, keep their "fresh" ticket to enter underground Metro line after leaving Line 14 for an interchange).
MCD (D lines) In 2019, new lines of
Russian Railways got included in the map of Metro as "
line D1" and "
line D2". Unlike Line 14, the MCD lines actually form
S-Train lines, bypassing the "vokzals", terminus stations of respective intercity railways. Line D3 is planned to be launched in August 2023, while D4 will be launched in September of that year. The schedule for the development of the infrastructure of the Central Transport Hub in 2023 was signed by the
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and the head of
Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov in December 2022. As for the fees, MCD accepts Moscow's "Troika" cards. Also, every MCD station has printers which print "station X – station Y" tickets on paper. Users of the D lines must keep their tickets until exiting their destination stations: their exit terminals require a valid "... to station Y" ticket's barcode.
Big Circle Line (line 11) After upgrading the railway from 1908 to a proper Metro line, the development of another circle route was re-launched, now adjusted for the pear-shaped
circle route of line #14. Throughout the late 2010s, Line 11 was extended from short, tiny
Kakhovskaya line to a half-circle (from Kakhovskaya to
Savyolovskaya). In early 2023, the circle was finished. • Similarly made
Shelepikha,
Khoroshovskaya,
CSKA and
Petrovsky Park stations have lots of polished granite and shiny surfaces, in contrast to Soviet "centipedes". Throughout 2018–2021, these stations were connected to
line 8A. •
Narodnoye Opolcheniye (2021) features lots of straight edges and linear decorations (such as uninterrupted "three stripes" style of the ceiling lights and rectangular columns). As for the spring of 2023, the whole
circle route line is up and running, forming a circle stretching to the southern near-MKAD residential parts of the city (
Prospekt Vernadskogo,
Tekstilshchiki) as opposed to the MCC's stretching towards the northern districts of Moscow. In other words, BCL "mirrors" MCC, avoiding forming a perfect circle around the city centre. While being long, the line is now the longest subway line in the world, ahead of the previous record holder - the line 10 of
Beijing Subway. ==Expansions==