Скачать или смотреть The deepest subway in the world, The Metro (Subway, Underground) in Moscow

*Moscow Metro*
Московский метрополитен

The Moscow Metro is not merely a transportation system—it is the city's subterranean soul, a palace-lined artery carrying millions through Russia's capital each day. Opened in 1935 under the direction of Lazar Kaganovich, it was the Soviet Union's first underground railway, built with both civic ambition and military foresight. Its deep tunnels, some plunging 74 meters below ground at Park Pobedy, were designed to shelter 400,000 Muscovites in the event of war .

To descend into the Metro is to enter a museum of ideology and art. Stalin-era stations like Mayakovskaya and Komsomolskaya are clad in Urals marble, rose-coloured rhodonite, and polished granite. Vaulted ceilings blaze with socialist realist mosaics—workers forging steel, peasants harvesting grain, soldiers marching toward victory. Chandeliers of crystal and brass hang like imperial jewels. Each station was conceived by leading architects as an individual project, a competition in beauty. This is why the Metro is called the "underground palace" or, more famously, the "underground museum" .

But grandeur is only half the story. The system is immense: as of 2025, it spans more than 470 kilometers across 15 lines and over 270 stations, with the Big Circle Line (opened in full in 2023) standing as the longest circular metro line in the world . By daily ridership—up to 9 million passengers—it ranks among the busiest on earth, behind only a few Asian megacities . Trains arrive with surgical precision: every 90 seconds during peak hours, a world record in frequency .

The Metro also speaks. A male voice announces trains heading toward the city center; a female voice announces those departing from it. On the ring line, a male voice travels clockwise, a female voice counter-clockwise—a quiet aid for visually impaired passengers, now woven into the city's acoustic texture .

War passed through these tunnels. In October 1941, as German forces approached Moscow, the Metro was hours from demolition. That evening, trains ran again. Throughout the war, stations doubled as bomb shelters; children slept on platforms beneath chandeliers while adults listened for sirens above .

Today, the Metro is quieter but no less alive. Fossils 300 million years old lie embedded in its limestone walls—ammonites and sea lilies, relics of an ancient sea floor . Passengers charge phones via USB ports, watch the Metro's own television channel, and read its daily newspaper. At turnstiles, many now pay with a glance: face recognition systems, among the world's largest deployments, have quietly entered service .

Yet the red "M" still glows above each entrance, unchanged since 1935. Descend, and you enter not just a train system, but a century of Russian history—carved in marble, lit by crystal, and still moving.