In total, the Moscow Metro has 292.2 km (181.6 miles) of route length, 12 lines and 177 stations; on a normal weekday it carries over 7 million passengers. Passenger traffic is considerably lower on weekends bringing the average daily passenger traffic during the year to 7.0 million passengers per day. The Moscow Metro is a state-owned enterprise.
The system operates according to an enhanced spoke-hub distribution paradigm, with most rail lines running between central Moscow and its suburbs. The Koltsevaya line forms a circular ring that connects the spokes and facilitates passenger movements between lines without having to travel all the way into the central city.
Each line is identified by an alphanumeric index (usually consisting of just a number), a name, and a colour. The voice announcements refer to lines by name, while in colloquial usage they are mostly referred to by colour, except the Kakhovskaya Line (number 11) which has been assigned shade of green similar to that of the Zamoskvoretskaya Line (number 2), Koltsevaya Line (number 5) and Butovskaya Line (number L1). Most lines run radially through the city, except the Koltsevaya Line (number 5), which is a 20-km-long ring connecting all the radial lines and a few smaller lines outside. On all lines, travellers can determine the direction of the train by the gender of the announcer: on the ring line, a male voice indicates clockwise travel, and a female voice counter-clockwise. On the radial lines, travellers heading toward the centre of Moscow will hear male-voiced announcements, and travellers heading away will hear female-voiced announcements. In addition, there is an abundance of signs showing all the stations that can be reached in a given direction.
The system was built almost entirely underground, although some lines (numbers 1, 2 and 4) cross the Moskva River, while line number 1 also crosses the Yauza River by bridge. Less than 10% of the stations are at or above the surface level. The surface sections of the Metro include the western part of Filyovskaya Line continuing as Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line between Kievskaya and Molodyozhnaya (eight surface stations), and the Butovskaya Light Metro Line (L1) with 4 elevated stations. The other surface stations are Vykhino, Izmaylovskaya and Vorobyovy Gory (the latter is unique in the world being built into a lower level of a bridge). There are several short surface stretches, including those between the stations Avtozavodskaya and Kolomenskaya (where a new station Technopark is going to be built), and between Tekstilshchiki and Volgogradsky Prospekt.
The Moscow Metro is open from about 5:30 until 1:00 (the opening time may vary at different stations according to first train schedule, but all stations close for entrance simultaneously at 1:00). During rush hours, trains run roughly every 90 seconds on most lines. At other times during the day, they run about every two to three and a half minutes, and every six to ten minutes late at night. As trains are so frequent, there is no timetable available to passengers.
Ticketing
In the Soviet time, the cost of a single journey was 5 kopecks (1/20 of Soviet ruble). The cost of journeys has been steadily rising since 1991. Inflation caused the price to rise considerably to 22 Russian rubles per trip (taking into account the 1998 denomination of the ruble by a factor of 1000). At the same time, one may get a considerable discount (up to 40%) per journey price when buying a ticket with multiple trips.
Tickets are available for a fixed number of journeys, irrespective of the distance of travel and the number of lines changed. Monthly and yearly tickets are also available. Once a passenger has entered the Metro system, there are no further ticket checks - one can ride any number of stations and make transfers freely. Fare enforcement takes place entirely at the points of entry.
The Moscow Metro used magnetic cards (contact cards) for tickets with a fixed number of journeys (up to 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 60 and 70 journeys for 30 days from the day of the first journey) until January 2008. As of February 2009 the cost of 1 ride is 22 rubles (69 US cents); there are small discounts starting with 5-ride cards. Magnetic cards were introduced in 1993 as a test and were used as unlimited tickets between 1996 and 1998. The sale of magnetic cards stopped 16 January 2008. In January 2007, Moscow Metro began replacing magnetic cards with fixed number of journeys by contactless cards. Smartcards are being used in Moscow Metro since 1998 and are called Transport Cards. Transport Cards were available as 'unlimited' and 'social' tickets. The unlimited card can be programmed for 30, 90, and 365 days. The social cards are free for elderly people (who are officially registered as residents of Moscow city or Moscow region) and some privileged categories of citizens; they are available to school pupils and students at a heavily reduced price (255 rubles (about 8 US$ for a month without journey limit). Contactless cards are available for 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 60 journeys versions. The Moscow Metro became the first metro system in Europe to fully implement smartcards on September 1, 1998. The sale of tokens ended on 1 January 1999 and they stopped being accepted in February 1999. Magnetic cards stopped being accepted in late 2008, making Moscow metro world's first major public transport system to run fully on contactless automatic fare collection system based on Philips NXP MIFARE technology.
History
Arbatskaya station
The first plans for a rapid transit system in Moscow date back in the times of the Russian Empire, but they were postponed by World War I, the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. It was not until June 1931 that the decision to start construction of the Moscow Metro was taken by the Central Committee of the USSR Communist Party. The first lines were built under the 1930s Moscow general plan designed by Lazar Kaganovich, and the Metro was initially (until 1955) named after him ("Metropoliten im. L.M. Kaganovicha"). Advice was given by the London Underground, the world's oldest metro system (partly because of this connection Gants Hill tube station, although not completed until much later, is reminiscent in design of many stations on the Moscow Metro).
First stage
The first line was opened to public on May 15, 1935 at 7am. The line was 11 km long, and included 13 stations. It connected Sokolniki to Park Kultury with a branch from Okhotny Ryad to Smolenskaya (the first Metro map is available here: [1]). The latter branch was further extended westwards to the new station Kiyevskaya in March 1937 (making the first Metro crossing of the Moskva River by the Smolensky Metro Bridge). The construction of the first stations was based on other underground systems, and only a few original designs were allowed: (Krasniye Vorota, Okhotniy Ryad and Kropotkinskaya). Kiyevskaya station was the first to use national motifs.
On May 14, 1935, the Komsomol was awarded the Order of Lenin by Stalin's suggestion for the contribution of the Komsomol members to construction of the first Metro stage[7].
Second stage
The second stage was completed before the war. In March 1938 the Arbatskaya branch was split in two and extended to 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 the most popular of the stations already in existence (Krasniye Vorota, Okhotnyi Ryad and Kropotkinskaya) and the compositions followed the popular art deco style, though merging it with socialist visions. The first deep level Column station Mayakovskaya was built at the same time.
Third stage
Building work on the third stage was delayed but not interrupted during the World War II, and two Metro sections were put into service: Teatralnaya - Avtozavodskaya (3 stations, crossing the Moskva river in a deep tunnel) and Kurskaya - Partizanskaya (4 stations) were inaugurated in 1943 and 1944 respectively. War motifs replaced socialist visions in the architectural design of the stations.
During the Siege of Moscow, in the autumn and winter of 1941, metro stations were used as air-raid shelters and the Council of Ministers moved its offices to the platforms of Mayakovskaya, where Stalin made public speeches on several occasions. Chistiye Prudy station was also walled off and the headquarters of the Air Defence installed there.
Fourth stage
After the war, construction started on the fourth stage of the Metro, which included the Koltsevaya Line and a deep part of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line from Ploshchad Revolyutsii to Kievskaya, and a surface extension to Pervomaiskaya in the early 1950s. The exquisite decoration and design of so much of the Moscow Metro is considered to have reached its peak in these stations.
The Koltsevaya Line was planned first as a line running under the Sadovoye Koltso (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. But later plans were changed and the northern part of the ring line deviates 1-1.5 km outside the Sadovoye Koltso, thus providing service for 7 (out of 9) rail terminals. The next part of the Koltsevaya line opened in 1952 (Kurskaya - Belorusskaya) and in 1954 the ring line was completed.
There is an interesting urban legend about the origin of the ring line. A group of engineers approached Stalin with plans for the Metro, to inform him of current progress and of what was being done at that moment. As he looked at the drawings, Stalin poured himself some coffee and spilt a small amount over the edge of the cup. When he was asked whether or not he liked the project so far, he put his cup down on the centre of the Metro blueprints and left in silence. The bottom of the cup left a brown circle on the drawings. The planners looked at it and realized that it was exactly what they had been missing. Taking it as a sign of Stalin's genius, they gave orders for the building of the ring line, which on the plans was always printed in brown. This legend, of course, may be attributed to Stalin's cult of personality. In fact the line was never shown as a circle on the Metro map until 1980, long after Stalin's death. Prior to this time, the line was depicted much closer to the shape of the actual route.
During the Cold War
The beginning of the Cold War led to the construction of a deep part of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line. The stations on this line are very deep and were planned as shelters in the event of nuclear war. After finishing the line in 1953, the upper tracks between Ploshchad Revolyutsii and Kiyevskaya were closed and later reopened in 1958 as a part of the Filyovskaya Line. In the further development of the Metro, the term "stages" was not used any more, although sometimes the stations opened in 1957–1959 are referred to as the "fifth stage".
During the late 1950s, the architectural extravagance of new metro stations was significantly toned down, and decorations at some stations, like VDNKh and Alexeyevskaya, were greatly simplified compared with original plans. This was done on the orders of Nikita Khrushchev, who favoured a more spartan decoration scheme. A typical layout (which quickly became known as "Sorokonozhka" - "Centipede", which comes from the fact that early designs had 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 of these stations were built with simplified, cheaper technologies which were not always quite suitable and resulted in extremely utilitarian design. For example, walls paved with cheap and simplistic ceramic tiles proved to be susceptible to vibrations caused by trains, with some tiles eventually falling off. It was not always possible to replace the missing tiles with the ones of the same color, which eventually led to infamous "variegated" parts of the paving. Not until the mid-1970s was the architectural extravagance restored, and original designs once again became popular. However, newer design of "centipede" stations, with 26 columns with wider ranges between them and more sophisticated, continued to dominate.
Recent developments
Time evolution of the number of stations.
Since the turn of the century, several projects have been completed, and more are underway. The first one was the Annino-Butovo extension, which consisted of extending the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line from Prazhskaya to Ulitsa Akademika Yangelya (2000), Annino (2001) and Bulvar Dmitriya Donskogo (2002). Afterwards a new elevated Butovskaya Light Metro Line was inaugurated in 2003.
Another major project was the reconstruction of the Vorobyovy Gory station, which initially opened in 1959 was forced to close in 1983 after the concrete used to build the bridge turned out to be defective. After many years, the station was rebuilt and re-opened in 2002.
A more recent major project included building a branch off the Filyovskaya Line to the Moscow International Business Centre. This included Delovoy Tsentr (2005) and Mezhdunarodnaya, opened in 2006.
After many years of building the long-awaited Lyublinskaya Line extension was inaugurated with Trubnaya in August 2007, with Sretensky Bulvar in December of that year.
The major Strogino-Mitino extension (see future plans below) began with Park Pobedy in 2003. Its first stations, an expanded Kuntsevskaya and Strogino opened in January 2008, and Slavyansky Bulvar followed them in September.
Newest stations
Sretensky Bulvar (2007)
Kuntsevskaya (2008)
Strogino (2008)
Slavyansky Bulvar (2008)
The system
Ulitsa Gorchakova of the Butovskaya Light Metro Line
The Rusich (81-740/81-741) train, on the left, now can be found on the oldest stations, among the oldest serving E-series cars
The Moscow Metro has a broad gauge of 1520 mm, like ordinary Russian railways, and a third rail supply of 825 V DC. The average distance between stations is 1800 m, the shortest (502 m) section being between Delovoy Center and Mezhdunarodnaya and the longest (6,627 m) between Krylatskoye and Strogino. The long distances between stations have the positive effect of a commercial cruising speed of 41.7 km/h.
Since the beginning of Moscow metro, platforms have been built to be at least 155 m long, so as to accommodate eight-car trains. The only exceptions are certain stations of Filyovskaya line: Delovoi Tsentr, Mezhdunarodnaya, Studencheskaya, Kutuzovskaya, Fili, Bagrationovskaya, Filyovsky Park, Pionerskaya, which only allow six-car trains (note that this list includes all ground-level stations of Filyovskaya line, except Kuntsevskaya).
Trains on lines 2, 6, 7, 9 and 10 consist of eight cars, on lines 1, 3, 8 of seven cars and on lines 4, 5 and 11 of six cars. All cars (both E-series and 81-series) are 19.6 m long with four doors on either side.
The Moscow Metro train is identical to those used in all other ex-Soviet Metro cities (St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Minsk, Kiev, Kharkov, etc.) and in Budapest, Sofia and Warsaw.
Line L1 is called the "Light metro". It was designed to its own standards and has shorter (96 m) platforms. It employs newer Rusich trains, which consist of three articulated cars, but it can also be served by traditional four-car trains. Rolling stock on the Filyovskaya Line and Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line is also replaced with four-car and five-car Rusich trains.
The Moscow metro comprises 177 stations, of which 72 are deep-level, and 87 are shallow. Of the deep stations, 55 are pylon-type, 16 are column-type and one is "single-vault" (Leningrad technology). The shallow stations comprise 65 of the pillar-type (a large portion of them following the infamous "sorokonozhka" design), 19 "single-vaults" (Kharkov technology) and three single-decked. In addition there are 10 ground-level stations and four above ground. Two of the stations exist as double halls, and two have three tracks. Five of the stations have side platforms (only one of them-subterranean). The station Vorobyovy Gory is on a bridge. Three other metro bridges exist but are covered or hidden. In addition there are two closed stations and one that is derelict.
There are also four stations, reserved for future service: Volokolamskaya of Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line, Delovoi Tsentr of Kalininskaya and Solntsevskaya lines and Park Pobedy of Solntsevskaya line. Besides these, there are two abandoned stations: old Kaluzhskaya and old Pervomayskaya.
Metro 2
Yauza train
Although this has not been officially confirmed, many[who?] independent studies suggest that a second, deeper metro system exists under military jurisdiction and was designed for emergency evacuation of key city personnel in case of nuclear attack during the Cold War. It is believed that it consists of a single track and connects the Kremlin, chief HQ (Genshtab), Lubyanka (FSB Headquarters) and the Ministry of Defence, as well as numerous other secret installations. There are also entrances to the system from several civilian buildings such as the Russian State Library, Moscow State University (MSU) and at least two stations of the regular metro. It is speculated that these would allow for the evacuation of a small number of randomly chosen civilians, in addition to most of the elite military personnel. A suspected junction between the secret system and normal Metro is behind the station Sportivnaya of the Sokolnicheskaya Line. The final section of this system was completed in 1997.
Incidents
Although the Metro is a complex system, it has a very low rate of accidents.
Terrorist bombing of 1977
Main article: 1977 Moscow bombings
On January 8, 1977, a bomb was reported to have killed seven and seriously injured 33. It went off on a crowded train between Izmailovskaya and Pervomaiskaya stations. Three Armenians were later arrested, charged and executed in connection with the incident.
Station fires of 1981
In June 1981, seven bodies were seen being taken out of Oktyabrskaya station during a fire at the station. A fire was also reported at Prospekt Mira station around that time.
Escalator accident of 1982
Main article: Aviamotornaya
A fatal accident took place on 17 February 1982 due to an escalator collapse at the Aviamotornaya station of the Kalininskaya Line. That day 8 people lost their lives, and 30 more were seriously injured, due to the pile-up caused by the faulty emergency brakes.
Train collision of 1983
On March 30, 1983, several passengers were killed[citation needed] when two trains collided in the Belorusskaya station on the Koltsevaya Line. A senior official of the Moscow metro told foreign reporters there had been no accident[citation needed] and that the closing of the station had been due to a breakdown of rolling stock.
Terrorist bombing of 2004
Main article: February 2004 Moscow metro bombing
On February 6, 2004, an explosion wrecked a train between Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya stations on Zamoskvoretskaya Line of the Metro, killing 40 and wounding over 100. Chechen terrorists were blamed. Later investigation concluded that a Karachay-Cherkessian resident, an Islamic militant, had committed a suicide bombing.
Moscow blackout of 2005
On May 25, 2005, a city-wide blackout halted some lines. The following lines continued operations: Sokol'nicheskaya, Zamoskvoretskaya from Avtozavodskaya to Rechnoy Vokzal, Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya, Filyovskaya, Kol'tsevaya, Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya from Bitsevskiy Park to Oktyabrskaya-Radialnaya and from Prospekt Mira-Radialnaya to Medvedkovo, Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya, Kalininskaya, Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya from Serpukhovskaya to Altufyevo, Lyublinskaya from Chkalovskaya to Dubrovka. Trains did not run on Kakhovskaya and Butovskaya lines. Blackout most heavily affected Zamoskvoretskaya and Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya lines where initially all traffic has been disrupted due to some trains halted in tunnels at south part of city which has been most affected by blackout. Later, parts of these lines resumed operation in limited mode and people from trains stopped in tunnels were evacuated. Some lines did not suffer much from blackout since blackout mainly affected south part of Moscow while north, east and west parts were less affected or not affected at all.
Billboard incident of 2006
On March 19, 2006, a construction pile from an unauthorized billboard installation was driven through the roof of the tunnel hitting a train between the Sokol and Voikovskaya stations on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line. No injuries were reported.
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