Moscow Guide
Getting around
The metro
The Moscow metro was one of the proudest achievements of the Soviet era – its efficiency and splendour once seemed a foretaste of the Communist utopia that supposedly lay ahead. Inaugurated in 1935, the system had four lines by the time of Stalin's death and has since grown into a huge network of 11 lines and 165-odd stations, of which four lines are still being extended. In 1994, its Soviet title, "The Moscow Metro in the name of Lenin", was quietly replaced by the plain "Moscow Metro" (Moskovskiy Metropolitan).
As everyone knows, the decor in many of the stations is palatial, with marble, mosaics, stained glass, life-sized statues, elaborate stucco and bronze fittings. With practice, you can distinguish the styles associated with each phase of construction, from the Neoclassical prewar stations to the High Stalinist opulence of the Circle line, or the lavatorial utility of 1970s stations.
Notwithstanding a few escalators being out of action, the metro works remarkably well. Trains run daily from 5.30am; the entrances and underground walkways linking interchange stations close at 12.30am, and services stop about half an hour afterwards, though on festivals and holidays they may run until later. There are trains every 1–2 minutes during the day and every 7 minutes at night.
Stations are marked with a large "M" and have separate doors for incoming and outgoing passengers.It's a peculiarity of Russian metros that where two or three lines meet, the interchange stations often have different names. In a quirk of its own, the Moscow metro also has two sets of stations called "Arbatskaya" and "Smolenskaya", on different lines (the Filyovskaya and Arbatsko-Povarskaya).