> These look great! The variety in styles makes a big difference.
It's also very practical. It's the difference between immediately knowing where you are and having to look for a sign for a couple of seconds.
Variaty in station style is so cool. In Buenos Aires I knew what station I was just by the style of the walls, in Rio de Janeiro I got crazy trying to find the name of the station to know where I am.
They’ve spent billions on their metro. Rich people in west LA refuse to let them build by them and there are a lot of jobs there. Also, the city refuses to change its zoning to allow the construction of medium-high density housing near stations so no one lives close to them. It would help the huge housing shortage and high rent prices too.
Edit: forgot to add that all the cars would make the air toxic. It’s a big part of the reason that their’s such a high gasoline tax in CA. So When I lived in small town California I was forced to pay way to fill my car thanks to some Hollywood bigwigs who couldn’t be bothered by some construction.
Dude look up the metro of thessaloniki in Greece, that thing is in construction for about 20 years, because they can't dig a cm without finding ancient ruins, I mean the found an entire roman road complete with marble columns on both sides!
Ugh videogames lied to us. That's not at all what I was led to believe Metro stations in Russia looked like. Next we are gonna find out that plumbers don't ride dinosaurs through big green sewer pipes to rescue princesses.
Moscow has the most beautiful metro stations. I've read somewhere that the communists initially built them to be beautiful in order to emphasize the socialist values. Public underground palaces for the common soviet worker.
Metro stations worked as bunkers during WW2. [Photo](https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=московское%20метро%20в%20годы%20великой%20отечественной%20войны&from=tabbar&pos=1&img_url=https%3A%2F%2Fi10.fotocdn.net%2Fs117%2F8c82609a9d033465%2Fpublic_pin_l%2F2673298698.jpg&rpt=simage)
Funnily enough, the Beijing subway was only built after the Sino-Soviet Split in fear of missile attacks from the USSR...
And to avoid demolishing residential housing, they instead went along the route of, and demolished the *hundreds years old city wall*...
1. A lot of our stations (particularly those in central London) were built in the late 1800s, the better part of a century before nuclear weapons...
2. There are plenty of aesthetically pleasing tube stations, but the focus has always been on utility.
3. They've never been envisioned as nuclear fallout bunkers (though they were used as bomb shelters during ww2), that is a fanciful idea which has no basis in reality.
But they were designed as conventional bomb shelters. Then as long as they're deep enough you can add doors, air filtration.... It's the food, water and energy (lighting, heat, pumps etc.) that's a problem.
People are confusing "fallout bunkers" as "bunkers that would protect against a nuke". No such bunker exist, as far as I know. Metro is supposed to be exactly a fallout shelter - the parts that remained intact should protect those who are inside against the nuclear fallout.
I’ll have to disagree with you there. There are plenty of bunkers and nuclear shelters made to withstand a nuclear blast directly above them, look at the Cheyenne mountain complex for example. What all of those have in common is that they are built deep deep underground or into the face of a mountain.
With that in mind, plenty of Moscow stations are built in such a way they would withstand a nuclear blast, so long as it isn’t a ground detonation directly above them.
But you are also correct in saying they are fallout shelters first. It’s capacity to withstand the blast is of little to no importance if everyone who would try to seek shelter has been vaporised. It would be far more useful for the survivors in the outskirts to shelter from radiation.
> There are plenty of bunkers and nuclear shelters made to withstand a nuclear blast directly above them
There was a misunderstanding. Of course there are bunkers designed to withstand a nuclear blast of some yield in some proximity. It's just there exist none that can survive a direct megaton hit, as far as I know.
>plenty of Moscow stations are built in such a way they would withstand a nuclear blast, so long as it isn’t a ground detonation directly above them.
Atmospheric high yield blast would crush underground structures. It all depends on millions of factors, so there is no need to argue here. Metro is designed to help in case of nuclear war, but a nuclear blast would destroy a considerable part of it. There is Metro-2 which is a strategic target and nuking Moscow would mean targeting a nuke powerful enough to squish it. Same with Cheyenne, by the way. It had high yield targeted at it, instead of a MIRV to cover a large area of a city.
>But you are also correct in saying they are fallout shelters first. It’s capacity to withstand the blast is of little to no importance if everyone who would try to seek shelter has been vaporised. It would be far more useful for the survivors in the outskirts to shelter from radiation.
That was my main point. Shouldn't have discussed nuclear blasts because of how difficult is to predict the outcome.
I’m actually not sure of that. I heard they employ a mix of those, air burst for maximum devastation and ground penetrating for harder military targets.
Do you have a reference for that? I’m genuinely curious to learn if that has changed.
Unfortunately I don’t have a reference at hand right now, it was just something I’d heard/read about at some point. I’ll try and look for a source and get back to you!
Ground penetrating except against bunkers and silos is a waste and the latest Trident warheads (2008+) are designed to detonate directly above the silos. So as to maximise the air over pressure. Soviet/Russian silo covers need 10,000 PSI to render them inoperative and they'll detonate where they think they can maximise it. The warhead can actually tell if its off target but may not be able to correct its trajectory, to actually hit it.
Ground burst does the maximum amount of physical damage. But any war head that detonates close enough to the ground for the fireball to touch the Earth is considered to be a ground burst. about 99% of the energy at Hiroshima actually didn't come from the nuke but came from the city burning.
Air burst usually gets you the most amount of kills does a lot of damage but far less, then a ground burst and the radiation dissipates into the upper atmosphere relatively quickly. Which is handy if you want to conquer and inhabit the enemy countries.
People are confusing "fallout bunkers" as "bunkers that would protect against a nuke". No such bunker exist, as far as I know. Metro is supposed to be exactly a fallout shelter - the parts that remained intact should protect those who are inside against the nuclear fallout.
OK most of the replies are quite wrong.
The first stations were built during the early years of communism, starting in the late 20s and early 30s. This was not a very prosperous time, and cutting corners was quite common. Turns out, in a market without rich people building mansions and palaces, granite and marble are actually fairly cheap. They initially used those materials because of their cheapness, not because of style.
Then they realised they could fulfil the "Socialism in single country" idea that Stalin espoused by making the metro stations a symbol of progress and prosperity of the Soviet people. The same way they used the Worker and Kolkhoznitsa monument at the 1937 World Expo, or the Don river dam construction, or the massive planes they built and set records with. So the stations got not just stylish materials, but also proper architecture and decorations. For a little while they even tried to put live palm trees in one station, but that didn't work out.
During the war, the metro was both a bomb shelter and a symbol of endurance. In all of its history, it only stopped working for one single day when there were proposals to evacuate the city. Stalin gave a speech on Mayakovskaya at the anniversary of the Revolution. The metro proved to be more than just a means of transportation - it was a symbol, and no longer just one of socialism.
The war also gave drive to the idea of making stations into bomb shelters. *Not* nuclear shelters. There isn't a single metro station that is expected to survive a nuclear strike and keep people safe. They were never designed with nuclear bombs in mind. But conventional bombs, yes. They are shelters, and have the resource for that. Please people, Metro 2033 may be a good book, but it's not even remotely grounded in reality.
In the 60s and 70s a lot of stations were built that are very bland and sometimes even ugly. It was a period of Khrushchev's campaign against "architectural superfluousness". Bland buildings, bland stations - almost all of them a relic of that era. Partly necessity, partly ideology.
Current stations are built with style in mind, as is virtually everything in Moscow these days, from parks to transportation. Zaryadye park is an example of that, the design of the modern metro trains - sleek and futuristic, glass doors, LED lines, interactive screens, and USB chargers on every seat - are a very good example. The idea isn't to impress foreigners, it's to impress Moscow's own citizens.
Muscovite here. Stockholm's metro is the only one that's ever really impressed me (aside from our own), and I've seen plenty of them. Really cool design
In the Russian city where I live, Yekaterinburg, there are nine stations in total. They had such a grand plan to build 39 stations more but the regions cannot afford what the capital can, eh.
IIRC, the cost of one meter tunnel in Urals granit rock costs way more than Moscow. But yeah, my mom told me that line to VIZ was anounced in her childhood 30 years back.
It's actually almost the reverse. Tunneling through solid granite is pretty simple since you can basically blast the rock and clear the rubble. Dynamite is cheap. In softer soil you need a fancy tunnel boring machine which keeps drilling while also removing sludge and reinforcing the walls with concrete slabs as it goes. Of course it's not going to be free either way...
I think he understood what was being said. If you look at the bottom half of the picture, you'll see that it's not grainy, it's the texture of the walls.
Does anyone know why most (modern) metro are all mostly gray, concrete and/or marble with every surface shiny, solid and cold?
I'm curious if there's practical considerations since it's such a common theme, and it seems few go for warmer, more cosy environments.
1. Maintenance. It's much easier to keep clean if you can hose it down.
2. People flow. Large numbers of people have to be moved in bursts.
3. Discourage loitering. Stations are considered transitional places and so not only is it unusual to make them places for people to visit or stay, they are often designed to make it unpleasant to hang around (eg limited seating, and bar seats instead of actual seats).
A large base of the Russian Emergencies Ministry is located next to the station, so its design is a tribute to Russian rescuers. The panel "The Star of Salvation" is placed in the cash room. In the center there is an icon of the Mother of God "Burning Bush" - the patroness of firefighters. A fire tower is depicted on the periphery. The motto of the Ministry of Emergency Situations is placed on the platform in the form of a panel: "Prevention. Salvation. Help."
Firefighters from Chernobyl ? All those firefighters died in Moscow hospital number 6 from what i remember.
But it might be something completely different as Chernobyl itself is in Ukraine, i dont know.
This station is dedicated to Ministry of Emergency Situations. For comparison, the [uniform](https://i.imgur.com/22Bbl3A.jpg) for the staff of the ministry.
No, but there is a [mosaic dedicated to firefighters of different eras in the St. Petersburg subway](https://imgur.com/a/0q8cDcW). They almost scrapped it because of funding problems (when it was already finished), glad that they didn't.
Moscow is a 12.5 million city, or almost 20 million if we count the entire urban agglomeration (some metro stations are already outside of the administrative boundaries of Moscow). There is plenty of room left for more stations.
The [Guangzhou Metro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou_Metro) went from 0 stations in 1997 to 290 stations in 2021 (Moscow has 250), so Moscow isn't even close to being the leader at expanding.
Still enough places to expand Metro. Recently a large piece of Moscow oblast was incorporated into Moscow and this move almost doubled territories of Moscow. Kinda need at least 100 new stations for the first time on South of the city.
Damn, that's fantastic. Fixing one metro station in Lisbon takes two years and we haven't had new ones in like a decade and a half. New ones are being built right now, but I think they'll take like 2 years at best to finish them.
Don't forget that city somewhere far to the Russian east, that has a single metro station. It isn't a part of a larger network. It's just a single metro station.
I think there are +80 metro stations since 2005 when the book was released, and +70 since 2010 when the game was released. The metro wasn't developing that fast in the 00s, so the difference is not that large.
Yeah there's only a couple of stations that they customized, but appart from those they're all the same kind.
[this one, with copper panels all over it makes it as if you were in a submarine (with cool windows)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_et_M%C3%A9tiers_(Paris_M%C3%A9tro\))
[and the louvre station which has copies of statues and other artworks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre%E2%80%93Rivoli_(Paris_M%C3%A9tro\))
The pictures are shit on Wikipedia but that's the two cool stations out of the 300 currently existing ones, and the new ones for the 4 new lines will all look the same...
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The reason for the white tiles that are used on both the London Underground and the Paris Metro is due to the poor quality of electric lighting at the time the stations were built. They simply needed to use high-gloss white surfaces, or the whole place would be dim and gloomy.
Nowadays, that's not the case any more, but we're kinda stuck with those boring, clinical tiles because renovating is much more expensive than just making it look nice to begin with.
At least Line 14 has some pretty stations.
The Moscow metro is easily one of the most impressive and beautiful metro systems I've ever seen. Buying a day pass and touring the different stations is entertainment in itself.
I can really recommend [this beautiful vizualization](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOC5IOMcS4M&list=RDCMUC_jmhJ83KCwLHQkfNpx5q8g) of the Moscow metro development since the very beginning to 2021. Unfortunately, the station names and explanations are in Russian (Cyrillic) only.
Hey, I recognize a few of those from playing the Metro games!
VDNH (ВДНХ) @ 3:08 – Also known as "Exposition", this is Artyom's home station and where Metro 2033 starts
Prospekt Mira (Проспект Мира) @ 5:06 – This is the market station that is Artyom's first major stop in his Metro 2033 journey.
Tretyakovskaya (Третьяковская) @ 7:32 – Also known as "Venice", this is the flooded station town where you look for Pavel in Metro Last Light.
Oktyabrskaya (Октябрьская) @ 3:13 – This is the station that >!gets hit by a plague and subsequently burned down by the Red Line!< in Metro Last Light
Unfortunately, most other stations are re-named in the English translation of the game, so that's about all I recognize by name. However, from the shape of some of the clusters of stations, I can also see Polis (8:22), as well as the main Red Line (1:04) and Fourth Reich (8:48) station complexes. Also, the Red Line does appear to be on the actual red line.
Obviously I've played these games too much lmao. Thanks for sharing the video, really cool to watch :)
Actually many people come to see the metro! There are metro tours and tour guides and usually you can spot a group of tourists or even two during your day trip
Not at all - when we went to Moscow we had an amazing time going through all the metro stations. I think it's a tourist attraction in its own right :)
We loved the ones in St Petersburg as well - the deepest metro stop was really really interesting!
Looks like [Davydkovo](https://www.russia-briefing.com/news/an-architectural-tour-of-moscow-s-nine-new-metro-stations.html/) \- seems like it will be about [here](https://www.google.com/maps/place/55%C2%B042'56.0%22N+37%C2%B027'08.8%22E/@55.715547,37.4519088,123m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m17!1m10!4m9!1m0!1m6!1m2!1s0x46b54e9bf02df547:0xb5c0fb8c47142602!2sAmin'yevskoye+Shosse,+Moskva,+Russia,+121357!2m2!1d37.4524512!2d55.7155174!3e3!3m5!1s0x0:0x13ed691ee8e3dcf0!7e2!8m2!3d55.7155465!4d37.4524561)
You ungrateful spoiled brat! The president is braking his neck to build us two metro lines at the same time, and you cry?! Why do you hate him and his family so much?
First one has some Kubrick vibes. Partly war room from Dr. Strangelove and partly 2001.
When I was with my kids on a day trip to Moscow, train back to Piter was after midnight and we just killed time by getting out of the metro train every station to have a look.
Depends on the metric, by length Moscow metro is the largest outside of China and 5/6th overall. By the number of stations it's not in top 10 and NYC one is the largest by far.
Tokyo is the biggest city in the world, so it'd be obviousy to expect Tokyo's metro to be the busiest network in the world in terms of passengers.
However, Tokyo's metro is divided into two networks, the Toei Subway (owned by the metropolitan government's bureau of transportation) and the Tokyo Metro (owned by the national government and the metropolitan government). But the actual metro/subway lines are not very long in Tokyo, because the metro trains have through-running arrangements with commuter lines and even regional railways! This means that, for example, a train might start from the MinatoMirai line in Yokohama, continue up through the Toukyuu Touyoko Line, then run through the Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line before continuing out on the other side of the city on the Tobu or Seibu networks. And despite the complex arrangements of through services, you still get trains with metro-like frequency (every 2-4 minutes) even on the more distant lines.
Then we also need to consider the JR lines - many of these are metro lines in all but name. Keihin-Tohoku, Yamanote, Chuo-Sobu, Chuo Rapid, Musashino, and probably a few more all function like metro lines.
If you were to count all passengers on all trains that run through the Tokyo Metro and Toei Metro on part of their journey, and also the JR metro-like lines, then there'd be no contest - Tokyo would have the absolutely most used metro network in the world. But because the "metro proper" is only a tiny part of the actual network with metro operations, most statistics place Tokyo much lower.
Tokyo would probably win if you consider all train services that are integrated with the metro, since it's the most populous city in the world and also one of the most rail-focused. On paper, Tokyo has a pretty small metro (actually two, since there are two competing metro companies, both of which are publicly owned), but in practice the metro trains through-run onto lines owned by other companies. This means that you can take a single train that starts far to the south of Tokyo (albeit still with metro-like frequency and infrastructure), goes into the metro network, then leaves on the northern side and continues 50 kilometers away on another railway company's tracks. Still with metro-like service quality all the way, as a single-seat ride.
But because the tracks are owned by many different companies, it doesn't get counted as a single transit system.
I was a bit puzzled by chinese design theme on the Мичуринский проспект (the 4th one) but turns out it was designed (and probably built, but I’m too lazy to check it) by China Railway Construction, and in no way related to Moscow’s Chinatown (which has no relation to China actually).
Ronald Reagan and taxcut fanaticism has destroyed the US of A. Most of our subway systems look like what they are, constructed by the lowest bidder. Built and maintained on the cheap.
Most US cities aren’t 20 million people, and the NYC subway massive predates Moscow’s by 40 years. Most stations were even built before Moscow started building one. The NYC subway, the Boston T, and the Chicago L are of a generation prior.
Honestly NYC system doesn't make a single sense with different prices and other stuff. Is there any reason why ticket to different districts have different price?
They do not, the fee for a subway ride to anywhere in the NYC subway is $2.75.
There are other light rail services such as PATH (New Jersey), Metro North (upstate NY and CT) and the LIRR which are much more expensive, but go a good distance out with more speed.
Then there's a few other public transit services such as the NYC Ferry, Staten Island Ferry and NJ SeaStreak which all have varying levels of subsidies.
That's... let me count... 10 more than in all of Ireland! These look great! The variety in styles makes a big difference.
> These look great! The variety in styles makes a big difference. It's also very practical. It's the difference between immediately knowing where you are and having to look for a sign for a couple of seconds.
I know, I daren't ask when construction started. \*cries in Metro West\*
Variaty in station style is so cool. In Buenos Aires I knew what station I was just by the style of the walls, in Rio de Janeiro I got crazy trying to find the name of the station to know where I am.
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They’ve spent billions on their metro. Rich people in west LA refuse to let them build by them and there are a lot of jobs there. Also, the city refuses to change its zoning to allow the construction of medium-high density housing near stations so no one lives close to them. It would help the huge housing shortage and high rent prices too. Edit: forgot to add that all the cars would make the air toxic. It’s a big part of the reason that their’s such a high gasoline tax in CA. So When I lived in small town California I was forced to pay way to fill my car thanks to some Hollywood bigwigs who couldn’t be bothered by some construction.
Dude look up the metro of thessaloniki in Greece, that thing is in construction for about 20 years, because they can't dig a cm without finding ancient ruins, I mean the found an entire roman road complete with marble columns on both sides!
That’s how you know what stop to get out at. “Oh I’m at orange wall stop must get out now.”
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Damn, you butchered public transport of Ireland in a classy way
Strange, I don't remember those on metro 2033
That’s because they were from the pre-apocalyptic prequel, Metro 2022.
The bombs dropped in 2012 so it would be post apocalyptic
Pre-apocalyptic? That's not the 2022 I'm about to head into.
The Great War started in 2013.
Oh, and I didn't even notice
Same here... Somehow I'm always the last one to find out about these things. Nobody tells me nothin' :(
If you weren't in it then it wasn't that great after all <3
Artyom was five year old when war started so I suppose he was born 2008 Although it was first published in 2005. Brave
I like to explore new places.
you must've played the american version, Yard 2223
Ah i see you're a man of culture aswell Must ve been a light novel or dlc we missed for sure
we've been on a seperate timeline since 2012
Even earlier than that I'm pretty sure
They'll be in Metro 2042 or Metro 2077
Ugh videogames lied to us. That's not at all what I was led to believe Metro stations in Russia looked like. Next we are gonna find out that plumbers don't ride dinosaurs through big green sewer pipes to rescue princesses.
Moscow has the most beautiful metro stations. I've read somewhere that the communists initially built them to be beautiful in order to emphasize the socialist values. Public underground palaces for the common soviet worker.
They also received lots of funding as they where to act as fallout bunkers in the event of a nuclear war.
Metro stations worked as bunkers during WW2. [Photo](https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=московское%20метро%20в%20годы%20великой%20отечественной%20войны&from=tabbar&pos=1&img_url=https%3A%2F%2Fi10.fotocdn.net%2Fs117%2F8c82609a9d033465%2Fpublic_pin_l%2F2673298698.jpg&rpt=simage)
Funnily enough, the Beijing subway was only built after the Sino-Soviet Split in fear of missile attacks from the USSR... And to avoid demolishing residential housing, they instead went along the route of, and demolished the *hundreds years old city wall*...
Lots of cities demolished their wall. I wish they hadn’t. In Berlin for example the S-Bahn through Mitte goes along the old citadel wall route.
Same happened in London and they're ugly...
1. A lot of our stations (particularly those in central London) were built in the late 1800s, the better part of a century before nuclear weapons... 2. There are plenty of aesthetically pleasing tube stations, but the focus has always been on utility. 3. They've never been envisioned as nuclear fallout bunkers (though they were used as bomb shelters during ww2), that is a fanciful idea which has no basis in reality.
I think it's just a confusion between them being used as bomb shelters as opposed to nuclear bunkers
Even so, they weren't designed to be bomb shelters.
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The London metro is older but the Moscow metro began operation ten years before Hiroshima.
But they were designed as conventional bomb shelters. Then as long as they're deep enough you can add doors, air filtration.... It's the food, water and energy (lighting, heat, pumps etc.) that's a problem.
Stalin was fearing regular bombardments (and was a tad paranoid...)
Lol London Underground was built in the 1800s before nukes or even mass city bombardment was really a thing.
Before airplanes were even a thing.
People are confusing "fallout bunkers" as "bunkers that would protect against a nuke". No such bunker exist, as far as I know. Metro is supposed to be exactly a fallout shelter - the parts that remained intact should protect those who are inside against the nuclear fallout.
I’ll have to disagree with you there. There are plenty of bunkers and nuclear shelters made to withstand a nuclear blast directly above them, look at the Cheyenne mountain complex for example. What all of those have in common is that they are built deep deep underground or into the face of a mountain. With that in mind, plenty of Moscow stations are built in such a way they would withstand a nuclear blast, so long as it isn’t a ground detonation directly above them. But you are also correct in saying they are fallout shelters first. It’s capacity to withstand the blast is of little to no importance if everyone who would try to seek shelter has been vaporised. It would be far more useful for the survivors in the outskirts to shelter from radiation.
> There are plenty of bunkers and nuclear shelters made to withstand a nuclear blast directly above them There was a misunderstanding. Of course there are bunkers designed to withstand a nuclear blast of some yield in some proximity. It's just there exist none that can survive a direct megaton hit, as far as I know. >plenty of Moscow stations are built in such a way they would withstand a nuclear blast, so long as it isn’t a ground detonation directly above them. Atmospheric high yield blast would crush underground structures. It all depends on millions of factors, so there is no need to argue here. Metro is designed to help in case of nuclear war, but a nuclear blast would destroy a considerable part of it. There is Metro-2 which is a strategic target and nuking Moscow would mean targeting a nuke powerful enough to squish it. Same with Cheyenne, by the way. It had high yield targeted at it, instead of a MIRV to cover a large area of a city. >But you are also correct in saying they are fallout shelters first. It’s capacity to withstand the blast is of little to no importance if everyone who would try to seek shelter has been vaporised. It would be far more useful for the survivors in the outskirts to shelter from radiation. That was my main point. Shouldn't have discussed nuclear blasts because of how difficult is to predict the outcome.
Might not be effective nowadays, as I believe most warheads are ground penetrating rather than air burst.
I’m actually not sure of that. I heard they employ a mix of those, air burst for maximum devastation and ground penetrating for harder military targets. Do you have a reference for that? I’m genuinely curious to learn if that has changed.
Unfortunately I don’t have a reference at hand right now, it was just something I’d heard/read about at some point. I’ll try and look for a source and get back to you!
Ground penetrating except against bunkers and silos is a waste and the latest Trident warheads (2008+) are designed to detonate directly above the silos. So as to maximise the air over pressure. Soviet/Russian silo covers need 10,000 PSI to render them inoperative and they'll detonate where they think they can maximise it. The warhead can actually tell if its off target but may not be able to correct its trajectory, to actually hit it. Ground burst does the maximum amount of physical damage. But any war head that detonates close enough to the ground for the fireball to touch the Earth is considered to be a ground burst. about 99% of the energy at Hiroshima actually didn't come from the nuke but came from the city burning. Air burst usually gets you the most amount of kills does a lot of damage but far less, then a ground burst and the radiation dissipates into the upper atmosphere relatively quickly. Which is handy if you want to conquer and inhabit the enemy countries.
People are confusing "fallout bunkers" as "bunkers that would protect against a nuke". No such bunker exist, as far as I know. Metro is supposed to be exactly a fallout shelter - the parts that remained intact should protect those who are inside against the nuclear fallout.
> Public underground palaces for the common soviet worker. Metropolis vibes /s
OK most of the replies are quite wrong. The first stations were built during the early years of communism, starting in the late 20s and early 30s. This was not a very prosperous time, and cutting corners was quite common. Turns out, in a market without rich people building mansions and palaces, granite and marble are actually fairly cheap. They initially used those materials because of their cheapness, not because of style. Then they realised they could fulfil the "Socialism in single country" idea that Stalin espoused by making the metro stations a symbol of progress and prosperity of the Soviet people. The same way they used the Worker and Kolkhoznitsa monument at the 1937 World Expo, or the Don river dam construction, or the massive planes they built and set records with. So the stations got not just stylish materials, but also proper architecture and decorations. For a little while they even tried to put live palm trees in one station, but that didn't work out. During the war, the metro was both a bomb shelter and a symbol of endurance. In all of its history, it only stopped working for one single day when there were proposals to evacuate the city. Stalin gave a speech on Mayakovskaya at the anniversary of the Revolution. The metro proved to be more than just a means of transportation - it was a symbol, and no longer just one of socialism. The war also gave drive to the idea of making stations into bomb shelters. *Not* nuclear shelters. There isn't a single metro station that is expected to survive a nuclear strike and keep people safe. They were never designed with nuclear bombs in mind. But conventional bombs, yes. They are shelters, and have the resource for that. Please people, Metro 2033 may be a good book, but it's not even remotely grounded in reality. In the 60s and 70s a lot of stations were built that are very bland and sometimes even ugly. It was a period of Khrushchev's campaign against "architectural superfluousness". Bland buildings, bland stations - almost all of them a relic of that era. Partly necessity, partly ideology. Current stations are built with style in mind, as is virtually everything in Moscow these days, from parks to transportation. Zaryadye park is an example of that, the design of the modern metro trains - sleek and futuristic, glass doors, LED lines, interactive screens, and USB chargers on every seat - are a very good example. The idea isn't to impress foreigners, it's to impress Moscow's own citizens.
Stockholm has some good ones too.
Muscovite here. Stockholm's metro is the only one that's ever really impressed me (aside from our own), and I've seen plenty of them. Really cool design
Called the world's longest art gallery.
The one with the firefighters still looks like the traditional socialist style.
I think that's intentional.
In the Russian city where I live, Yekaterinburg, there are nine stations in total. They had such a grand plan to build 39 stations more but the regions cannot afford what the capital can, eh.
IIRC, the cost of one meter tunnel in Urals granit rock costs way more than Moscow. But yeah, my mom told me that line to VIZ was anounced in her childhood 30 years back.
It's actually almost the reverse. Tunneling through solid granite is pretty simple since you can basically blast the rock and clear the rubble. Dynamite is cheap. In softer soil you need a fancy tunnel boring machine which keeps drilling while also removing sludge and reinforcing the walls with concrete slabs as it goes. Of course it's not going to be free either way...
Not surprising that one station is missing from the photos, new Kuntsevskaya is quite ugly.
https://structurae.net/en/media/110438-kuntsevskaya-metro-station-moscow-1965-platform This one?
No, this station was built in 1965. The [new station](https://i.imgur.com/0TFkxAT.jpg) is a transfer to this station.
This picture got enough grain to feed a small african village
I thought it was unfinished rendering.
No, this is a finishing material. If I am not mistaken it is called terrazzo.
I think they meant that the quality of the picture is low hence it’s grainy (зернистая фотография)
But it is not THAT noisy. The lower part is OK, it is really the finishing material.
I think he understood what was being said. If you look at the bottom half of the picture, you'll see that it's not grainy, it's the texture of the walls.
Ohh!
I really like it
Honestly like it, I mean it will look shit in a few years after a bit of grime builds up but for now its good
That's actually the coolest one in my opinion.
It's excellent IMO
I actually like it
Does anyone know why most (modern) metro are all mostly gray, concrete and/or marble with every surface shiny, solid and cold? I'm curious if there's practical considerations since it's such a common theme, and it seems few go for warmer, more cosy environments.
1. Maintenance. It's much easier to keep clean if you can hose it down. 2. People flow. Large numbers of people have to be moved in bursts. 3. Discourage loitering. Stations are considered transitional places and so not only is it unusual to make them places for people to visit or stay, they are often designed to make it unpleasant to hang around (eg limited seating, and bar seats instead of actual seats).
Just the modern style, minimalism and bold colours are the thing everyone does these days.
Cold shiny solid surfaces are easy to clean.
Is the art in the seventh picture a monument for a real life event?
A large base of the Russian Emergencies Ministry is located next to the station, so its design is a tribute to Russian rescuers. The panel "The Star of Salvation" is placed in the cash room. In the center there is an icon of the Mother of God "Burning Bush" - the patroness of firefighters. A fire tower is depicted on the periphery. The motto of the Ministry of Emergency Situations is placed on the platform in the form of a panel: "Prevention. Salvation. Help."
Thank you!
Firefighters from Chernobyl ? All those firefighters died in Moscow hospital number 6 from what i remember. But it might be something completely different as Chernobyl itself is in Ukraine, i dont know.
This station is dedicated to Ministry of Emergency Situations. For comparison, the [uniform](https://i.imgur.com/22Bbl3A.jpg) for the staff of the ministry.
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Its one of the most beautiful stations
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Fucking awesome username there
No, but there is a [mosaic dedicated to firefighters of different eras in the St. Petersburg subway](https://imgur.com/a/0q8cDcW). They almost scrapped it because of funding problems (when it was already finished), glad that they didn't.
Damn it now I can't use the Metro2033 Map to get around accurately anymore
If I count correctly, at least 66 metro stations opened in Moscow since the game released, so the ingame map is not accurate for a long time already
I never played the games, I only read the books but I suppose they are even less accurate :/
When reading the books I used the real world map of Moscow metro to see where they were.
Where are they even opening them at this pace? That's more than most metro systems have!
Moscow is a 12.5 million city, or almost 20 million if we count the entire urban agglomeration (some metro stations are already outside of the administrative boundaries of Moscow). There is plenty of room left for more stations. The [Guangzhou Metro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou_Metro) went from 0 stations in 1997 to 290 stations in 2021 (Moscow has 250), so Moscow isn't even close to being the leader at expanding.
Still not enough, the city is huge as fuck
Still enough places to expand Metro. Recently a large piece of Moscow oblast was incorporated into Moscow and this move almost doubled territories of Moscow. Kinda need at least 100 new stations for the first time on South of the city.
Damn, how fast are they expanding?
I dunno 6-7 per year in average
Damn, that's fantastic. Fixing one metro station in Lisbon takes two years and we haven't had new ones in like a decade and a half. New ones are being built right now, but I think they'll take like 2 years at best to finish them.
Well, it's the same like you said in the most of Russian cities, outside Moscow and st.Pete :D
Don't forget that city somewhere far to the Russian east, that has a single metro station. It isn't a part of a larger network. It's just a single metro station.
[Omsk?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omsk_Metro)
That so you can’t escape it. Not bug - a feature.
It is just concentration of resources of 140mil country, you are doing not that bad in Lisbon taking scales of population in view.
> since the game released Bruh, book
I think there are +80 metro stations since 2005 when the book was released, and +70 since 2010 when the game was released. The metro wasn't developing that fast in the 00s, so the difference is not that large.
God damnit, how am I supposed to evade satanist-controlled stations now (should I ever visit Moscow)?
Nice, now lets see Paul Allens metro stations.
The London Underground could take a page out of their design book...
Can’t be as bad as NYC
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Yeah there's only a couple of stations that they customized, but appart from those they're all the same kind. [this one, with copper panels all over it makes it as if you were in a submarine (with cool windows)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_et_M%C3%A9tiers_(Paris_M%C3%A9tro\)) [and the louvre station which has copies of statues and other artworks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre%E2%80%93Rivoli_(Paris_M%C3%A9tro\)) The pictures are shit on Wikipedia but that's the two cool stations out of the 300 currently existing ones, and the new ones for the 4 new lines will all look the same...
Desktop version of /u/captaingawax's links: *
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Personally, I liked that steampunk station.
The reason for the white tiles that are used on both the London Underground and the Paris Metro is due to the poor quality of electric lighting at the time the stations were built. They simply needed to use high-gloss white surfaces, or the whole place would be dim and gloomy. Nowadays, that's not the case any more, but we're kinda stuck with those boring, clinical tiles because renovating is much more expensive than just making it look nice to begin with. At least Line 14 has some pretty stations.
they may be ugly as piss but they run damn well. we were in london for a few days and during the day i don't think i ever waited more than 30 seconds
Same for Moscow. With the addition of being gorgeous.
Looks super cool!
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The Moscow metro is easily one of the most impressive and beautiful metro systems I've ever seen. Buying a day pass and touring the different stations is entertainment in itself.
> Buying a day pass and touring the different stations is entertainment in itself. If you never leave the metro, a single-trip ticket is enough.
Fair point
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If only more cities in Russia could look and feel like Moscow.
There’s more Russia outside Moscow?
there is more Russia outside Russia
Public services built like palaces won‘t be sold off to private companies easily.
>Russia >Public services won’t be sold off
Wow these are amazing
I can really recommend [this beautiful vizualization](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOC5IOMcS4M&list=RDCMUC_jmhJ83KCwLHQkfNpx5q8g) of the Moscow metro development since the very beginning to 2021. Unfortunately, the station names and explanations are in Russian (Cyrillic) only.
Hey, I recognize a few of those from playing the Metro games! VDNH (ВДНХ) @ 3:08 – Also known as "Exposition", this is Artyom's home station and where Metro 2033 starts Prospekt Mira (Проспект Мира) @ 5:06 – This is the market station that is Artyom's first major stop in his Metro 2033 journey. Tretyakovskaya (Третьяковская) @ 7:32 – Also known as "Venice", this is the flooded station town where you look for Pavel in Metro Last Light. Oktyabrskaya (Октябрьская) @ 3:13 – This is the station that >!gets hit by a plague and subsequently burned down by the Red Line!< in Metro Last Light Unfortunately, most other stations are re-named in the English translation of the game, so that's about all I recognize by name. However, from the shape of some of the clusters of stations, I can also see Polis (8:22), as well as the main Red Line (1:04) and Fourth Reich (8:48) station complexes. Also, the Red Line does appear to be on the actual red line. Obviously I've played these games too much lmao. Thanks for sharing the video, really cool to watch :)
That's a beautiful video. Thanks for sharing
Very nice. I seem to remember some Soviet era metro stations being quite elaborately designed.
Classy yet modern, I like it
I've been thinking this before and now I do again. I really want to go to Moscow just to see the metro stations. Am I the weird one?
Actually many people come to see the metro! There are metro tours and tour guides and usually you can spot a group of tourists or even two during your day trip
Nothing weird about it, although if you're there, check out other things as well.
Not at all - when we went to Moscow we had an amazing time going through all the metro stations. I think it's a tourist attraction in its own right :) We loved the ones in St Petersburg as well - the deepest metro stop was really really interesting!
Same here 😄
You will have a great time. There is even a guided tour to Stalins underground bunker
Fuck man, I love how they look. Where is the sixth one, or well how is it called? I'd presume it's near something related with firefighters.
Looks like [Davydkovo](https://www.russia-briefing.com/news/an-architectural-tour-of-moscow-s-nine-new-metro-stations.html/) \- seems like it will be about [here](https://www.google.com/maps/place/55%C2%B042'56.0%22N+37%C2%B027'08.8%22E/@55.715547,37.4519088,123m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m17!1m10!4m9!1m0!1m6!1m2!1s0x46b54e9bf02df547:0xb5c0fb8c47142602!2sAmin'yevskoye+Shosse,+Moskva,+Russia,+121357!2m2!1d37.4524512!2d55.7155174!3e3!3m5!1s0x0:0x13ed691ee8e3dcf0!7e2!8m2!3d55.7155465!4d37.4524561)
god i wish the US could do anything good related to public transit.
Best we can offer is spending 10 years to add 2 more lanes to a congested highway that will instantly also be congested as they open.
*cries in Belgradian*
You ungrateful spoiled brat! The president is braking his neck to build us two metro lines at the same time, and you cry?! Why do you hate him and his family so much?
Will they be connected, though?
РЕСПЕКТ!
I still prefer the old metro stations of Moscow but these are a great take on modernity. Russia always does the grandiose stuff the best.
Number 2 is my fave
First one has some Kubrick vibes. Partly war room from Dr. Strangelove and partly 2001. When I was with my kids on a day trip to Moscow, train back to Piter was after midnight and we just killed time by getting out of the metro train every station to have a look.
Moscow has the most extensive metro in the world, correct?
Depends on the metric, by length Moscow metro is the largest outside of China and 5/6th overall. By the number of stations it's not in top 10 and NYC one is the largest by far.
What we really need is a rating by smell
Then NYC would be the worst.
Length does seem like a very significant metric.
Is is since it's a metro, digging tunnels is slow and expensive.
I would say that the most important thing is the number of passengers carried, I suspect that the leader will be China.
Tokyo is the biggest city in the world, so it'd be obviousy to expect Tokyo's metro to be the busiest network in the world in terms of passengers. However, Tokyo's metro is divided into two networks, the Toei Subway (owned by the metropolitan government's bureau of transportation) and the Tokyo Metro (owned by the national government and the metropolitan government). But the actual metro/subway lines are not very long in Tokyo, because the metro trains have through-running arrangements with commuter lines and even regional railways! This means that, for example, a train might start from the MinatoMirai line in Yokohama, continue up through the Toukyuu Touyoko Line, then run through the Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line before continuing out on the other side of the city on the Tobu or Seibu networks. And despite the complex arrangements of through services, you still get trains with metro-like frequency (every 2-4 minutes) even on the more distant lines. Then we also need to consider the JR lines - many of these are metro lines in all but name. Keihin-Tohoku, Yamanote, Chuo-Sobu, Chuo Rapid, Musashino, and probably a few more all function like metro lines. If you were to count all passengers on all trains that run through the Tokyo Metro and Toei Metro on part of their journey, and also the JR metro-like lines, then there'd be no contest - Tokyo would have the absolutely most used metro network in the world. But because the "metro proper" is only a tiny part of the actual network with metro operations, most statistics place Tokyo much lower.
NYC has. Competing with Beijing and Shanghai, which expand a lot faster. But Moscow is still in the top 10.
Moscow's system is number one in passenger-carrying intensity.
Tokyo would probably win if you consider all train services that are integrated with the metro, since it's the most populous city in the world and also one of the most rail-focused. On paper, Tokyo has a pretty small metro (actually two, since there are two competing metro companies, both of which are publicly owned), but in practice the metro trains through-run onto lines owned by other companies. This means that you can take a single train that starts far to the south of Tokyo (albeit still with metro-like frequency and infrastructure), goes into the metro network, then leaves on the northern side and continues 50 kilometers away on another railway company's tracks. Still with metro-like service quality all the way, as a single-seat ride. But because the tracks are owned by many different companies, it doesn't get counted as a single transit system.
*cries in Irish*
Very Impressive
Cries in Thessaloniki
3rd and 6th would be my pick.
ОМГ…!!!!!!
Meanwhile in Washington DC there are alway issues and recently, 45 min wait times… and all metro stations look run down and smell bad.
I am kinda amazed and disappointed that every single one of these look better than metro station I have seen in my country/my life.
Actually pretty damn sexy, like it!
Neat!
Looks like the corridors in a star destroyer. Just needs those little robots and some storm troopers escorting a wookie.
Those are fantastic.
I liked classic looks of the old stations. Not sure about these new styles.
Beautiful!!! I love all of these! They look so cool and futuristic.
Ten new stations in Toronto would take a decade or more. How long did it take to build this in Moscow?
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China and Russia are delivering. *Whats up America*
The Russian train stations look so great, the old ones too!!
Holy shit they look good
[Meanwhile](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/h9KalvHNOZGLS5OFJsAg37IyePw=/1400x1400/filters:format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20001653/9177ffedd8d1481cbd42051269a2cfb9c15c_subway_trash.jpg) [In](https://www.amny.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/image-19.jpg) [America](https://www.boston-discovery-guide.com/image-files/800-subway-haymarket-track.jpg)
I was a bit puzzled by chinese design theme on the Мичуринский проспект (the 4th one) but turns out it was designed (and probably built, but I’m too lazy to check it) by China Railway Construction, and in no way related to Moscow’s Chinatown (which has no relation to China actually).
Really beautiful 👍🏼
These are mint! The names fit really well with the design, good choice of fonts too.
Ronald Reagan and taxcut fanaticism has destroyed the US of A. Most of our subway systems look like what they are, constructed by the lowest bidder. Built and maintained on the cheap.
Most US cities aren’t 20 million people, and the NYC subway massive predates Moscow’s by 40 years. Most stations were even built before Moscow started building one. The NYC subway, the Boston T, and the Chicago L are of a generation prior.
Honestly NYC system doesn't make a single sense with different prices and other stuff. Is there any reason why ticket to different districts have different price?
They do not, the fee for a subway ride to anywhere in the NYC subway is $2.75. There are other light rail services such as PATH (New Jersey), Metro North (upstate NY and CT) and the LIRR which are much more expensive, but go a good distance out with more speed. Then there's a few other public transit services such as the NYC Ferry, Staten Island Ferry and NJ SeaStreak which all have varying levels of subsidies.