Detail from the false cupolas of Mayakovskaya

The wonders of socialist construction are few.  Visitors to the Russian capital go to see the Kremlin, Red Square, and St. Basil’s Cathedral, remnants of Moscovy, the ancient land of the Rus.  Of course Lenin’s macabre presence still draws a crowd to his mausoleum, but with the exception of the Seven Sisters—the seven soviet-gothic skyscrapers Stalin constructed after World War II—little soviet-era architecture in Moscow is impressive and much, like the infamous Hotel Russia, is the target of near universal derision.  The soviets did leave some real architectural gems in Moscow, however, but they are not to be found along the glutted streets of this metropolis.  The Moscow Metropolitan, like treasure, is literally, buried. 

Since it is summer—travel season—this is a good opportunity to take a virtual tour of the Moscow Metro and invite readers to visit the Metro’s webpage, metro.ru.  I was in Moscow for six weeks a few years ago and visited all 170-odd stations of this amazing transit web.  I will provide some information about many of the more interesting stations along with guidance on how to get around the all-Russian-language metro.ru (hint: there are transliterations in the web address that will help you on your way and Google will translate some words into English for you).  You don’t need to know Russian; the website has images, both historical and contemporary, of nearly every station, often including the ornate vestibules at street level (the finest is the Greco-Roman temple topping Dinamo ) and pictures of the construction process on newer stations.  Even in otherwise plain stations like Tsaritsino (Царицыно) and Marksistskaya (Марксистская) have artwork to dress them up. 

For more information about the creation of this incredible transportation museum see my post Buried History in the Moscow Metro. 

Getting around:  On metro.ru click on the second item in the first column, Станции (Stantsii, stations).  The stations page is a complete list of all the stations in line order.  The lines are numbered as in “1. Сокольническая.”  Once on a line there is a bar near the top of the page containing the names of four or five stations.  The middle one—your present station—has arrows on either side.  Use these to advance to the next station (or sometimes the one after that) or go back (or back two).  In general the stations toward the ends of the lines are going to be the much more common variety.  They are in the “suburbs” and didn’t get the same level of resources the more urban stations—which are more heavily used and more visible—get.  

The first line listed, Сокольническая (Sokol’nicheskaya) was the first built.  By the later standards of the post-war stations they are plain but to a soviet citizen of the mid-1930s these spacious stations containing acres of marble and granite that provided rapid transport must have seemed like a godsend, at least as long as that god was named Stalin.   On Sokol’nicheskaya the vestibules are often the most interesting parts.    

 1. Сокольническая 

Красные ворота (Krasniye Vorota, trans. Red Gates, 1935) has a vestibule that looks like an enormous jet engine sticking out of a store.  Inside the barrel vaulted ceiling has hexagonal coffers. 

Кропоткинская (Kropotkinskaya) This one uses Egyptian columns topped with lotus leaves which was pretty risky on behalf of the designers.  Stalin was trying to associate his reign with democratic classicism (a style to which the other stations of the period rigidly adhered).  Perhaps the architect was hinting at power of the pharaoh-tsar Stalin.  There is a lovely coffered archway on the vestibule. 

2. Замоскворецкая (Zamoskvoretskaya) 

Paveletskaya

Павелецкая (Paveletskaya) is a white hall with a yellow-marble colonnade.  Where the arches meet there is a diamond-shaped shield with the hammer and sickle.  To westerners during the Cold War that symbol was a menacing pair of weapons, but to Russians the serp i molot were just innocuous tools. 

Built in 1943, Новокузнецкая (Novokuznetskaya) is what could only be called a war station. A bas-relief frieze of Soviet warriors runs the length of the station and the ceiling is covered in murals of workers, soldiers, sailors and farm girls.  A mosaic showing two skiers waving at a futuristic train, all blue with a red star on its nose.  Notice the 6-foot-tall backs on the marble benches. 

The steel ribs of Mayakovskaya

Маяковская Mayakovskaya, (1938), Mayakovskaya was so beloved that it was reproduced for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, where it won the grand prize in architecture.  It would later show up in a painting of Stalin’s 1941 meeting held in that station to mark the anniversary of the October Revolution while the Nazis were poised at the edge of Moscow.  Mayakovskaya was used as an air raid shelter during the war as seen in one of the photos on metro.ru. 

3. Арбатско-Покровская (Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya)  

Митино (Mitino) and Волоколамская (Volokolamskaya) are brand new, opened in December 2009.  See this page for the photos of the cut-and-cover method of construction and the gleaming new station and trains. 

Славянский бульвар (Slavyanskii Boulevard, 2009).  Another new station has vine-like lampposts and other metal “greenery” inside. 

A sailor crouches uncomfortably in Revolution Square

Площадь Революции (Ploshad’ Revolutsii, Revolution Square, 1938) is overflowing with larger-than-life bronze statues of the cast.  This is a very expressive and determined lot, the pride of homo sovieticus, although it is peculiar that they are stuffed in the corners of arches.  Some—like the worker with a jackhammer—look downright awkward and uncomfortable.  This could have been a message from the artist during the worst of the Great Terror.  Still, surrounded by red and black marble this station carries with it considerable dignity. 

The page for Электрозаводская (Electrozavodskaya, Electric Factory) contains gorgeous recent images of the renovations of this classical station from 1944 including the vestibule, which is reminiscent of the interior of the Pantheon. 

5. Кольцевая The (Koltsevaya) Ring Route is all post-war and Stalin spent extravagantly on these. 

The windows of Novoslobodskaya

 After the somnambular rocking of the train cars through the black tunnel, arriving at Новослободская (Novoslobodskaya, 1952) is a shock to the system.  It is covered with 32 internally lighted stained-glass windows of the cast—the workers, soldiers, sailors, etc. that are the stuff of all Soviet public art—in artistic pursuits.  Each window is framed by gold and silver leaves and white marble.  This is a bright and colorful station that is my personal favorite. 

Yugo-sized chandeliers in Komsomolskaya

The marble-carved decorative borders alone are worth a look in Киевская (Kievskaya, 1954).  The pilasters have detailed mosaics of the cast at work:  here the competition between the Ural and Donskoi metalworks (complete with billowing smokestacks), there the tractor drivers at the first Motor Tractor Station.  Peter the Great leads troops, Lenin proclaims Soviet power and even Kalinin makes a rare appearance, in this scene opening a dam. 

Kalinin makes a rare appearance in Kievskaya

6. Калужско-Рижская (Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya)  

The hard, angled stanchions of Сухаревская (Sukharevskaya,1971) are distinct from the more typically rounded ones of earlier decades but part of an emerging aesthetic of the 1970s.  The USSR had some money from oil revenues and began spending lavishly again on metro stations during Brezhnev’s reign.  

Шаболовская (Shabolovskaya, 1980) looks like a church! 

7. Таганско-Краснопресненская (Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya)  

In Кузнецкий мост (Kyznetskii Most, Kyznets Bridge, 1975), the colonnade is composed of stanchions covered in varicolored marble over a dark granite floor. 

Баррикадная (Barrikadnaya, Barricade, 1972) is another of those angular stations from the 70s.  The stepped stanchions are made of red marble and the overhead lighting is in a zigzag pattern.  The station doesn’t mark any particularly famous street battle; it is just located on Barricade Ulitsa (Street). 

8. Калининская 

Шоссе Энтузиастов (Shosse Entuziastov,Shosse of Enthusiasts, 1979).  Fight the Power! 

Angels in Aviamotornaya.

For sheer garishness, Авиамоторная (Aviamotornaya, 1979) is a must-see.  The station is mostly white marble, but the ceiling is covered in gold foil with light bulbs sticking out all over it.  At the end is an incongruous gold and silver sculpture of what bears a striking resemblance to an angel, peculiar in an officially atheist state. 

The vast majority of stations are named for the street or square where they are located. Most don’t do their namesakes justice but Площадь Ильича (Ploshad’ Ilicha, Ilich Square, 1979) is an exception.   Simple, square red granite supports and a black granite floor frame a relief of Lenin (Ilich was his real name) at the end of the station, a far more dignified tribute to the founder of the USSR than the waxen corpse on Red Square.   

9. Серпуховско-Тимирязевская (Serpukhovsko-Timiryayevskaya) 

Interesting lighting is a fixture of the Metro. Here, Mendeleyevskaya.

Because Менделеевская  (Mendeleyevskaya, 1988) is dedicated to the creator of the periodic table of the elements there is, of course, a mural of him with his chart.  On the train wall are plaster casts of what look like cells under a microscope on top of lovely marble blending from gray on top to orange below.  The best thing here is the light fixtures which look like atomic structures.  Regrettably the periodic chart sculpture is not shown on the website, but if you are ever in Moscow. . . 

10. Люблинско-Дмитровская (Lyublinsko-Dmitrovskaya) 

Римская (Rimskaya) was completed in 1995, one of the first stations conceived and built in the post-Soviet era.  At the end of the marble-covered central hall there is a statue.  This is a common layout for stations built over the last 25 years but this display is odd.  There are three pieces of a broken Corinthian column made of reddish marble and on one of them two naked babies were playing.  It is a theme:  on the ruins of the Soviet Empire the new Russian nation grows. 

Note:  All photos on this page by Scheib.