When we arrived in Moscow, Russia we brought warm weather with us. The long, cold winter was officially over and we were greeted by blue skies, warm breezes and flowers and trees bursting with life. It couldn’t have been more perfect.
However, we were destined to spend one day entirely underground, riding the city’s metro system from station to station. A strictly utilitarian feat in most cities, Moscow’s metro has a very unique distinction. It has the most beautiful stations in the world.
Politics aside, Josef Stalin had a desire to create the most ostentatious displays of Soviet architecture that he could, and this is evident all over the city of Moscow. However, some of the best examples of Stalinist architecture are deep below the city. With most of the construction taking place between 1931 and 1958, designers and architects used the finest materials to construct the stations, and most are still in use today.
Marble floors and benches, stained glass, bronze statues, arches and domed ceilings and exquisite light fixtures combine to rival any interior in the world. Additionally, the cost to enter the metro is about 1 USD, and you need not pay again if you don’t go out. We spent hours riding from station to station, which made this one of the cheapest activities in an otherwise very expensive city.
Unfortunately, a lack of English signage makes this metro system a bit difficult to navigate. We circumvented this by creating our own map and deciding which stations we wanted to visit. After that, simply counting stops was a great way to get around that pesky Cyrillic problem.
My apologies in advance if I didn’t match the photos with their correct station. I was so busy picking up my jaw from the floor that I didn’t take very good notes
I would have loved to spend days exploring each station, but at 188 stations and over 318 kilometers of track, that would have taken most of the week we had in the city. I was more than content with the stations we did see, and it one of the best dollars I’ve ever spent.
I’ve always wanted to see those stunning Moscow’s metro stations with my eyes, but unfortunately didn’t have the chance yet. Your photos and post encourage me more to book a ticket. Cheers for sharing!
The Moscow stations you’ve photographed look incredible! I wonder how much time one would have to spend for complete coverage of all of the stations.
Fantastic shots! I can’t believe they’re metro stations. I’ve seen quite a lot in my travels, but none were as wonderful as these. If I could travel to Moscow, I would probably devote several blog posts to just writing about their metro system.
Hi Cate. Just stumbled onto your guys’ blog. Very interesting read. I am doing a tour of eastern Europe and I just got a visa for Russia in case I want to go see st Pete’s and or Moscow. I am curious where you guys stayed. Does anybody speak English? Hostels? Thanks for the blog!
We were fortunate to have a friend who works at the U.S. Embassy, so we stayed with him on the embassy grounds. English isn’t widely spoken, and signage is nearly exclusively in Cyrillic. I can’t speak to the availability/quality of hostels other than I would assume that they do exist. There’s always couchsurfing which I would think would be a great way to enjoy Moscow (or St. Pete)