Moscow became the capital of Russia and the Soviet Union after the revolution of 1917. Then it had 1.7 million inhabitants. Today the city has more than 9 million inhabitants and about 1000 km2 (40 km from one side to the other). In 1932 construction of Moscow's metro began as a piece of art with elegant and huge stations. Today the Moscow metro seems to be the busiest in the world, carrying an average of 8-9 million passengers on a normal weekday, i.e. some 3,000,000,000 (!) a year.

The Moscow Metro is 292.9 km long and has 177 stations (Sept. 2008). Although there are line numbers on some maps lines are identified by names referring to the areas they serve. There's also a 20 km long ring line connecting all other lines. The system is almost entirely underground although some lines (1, 2, 4) cross the Moskva river and line 1 also the Yauza river on a bridge. An exception is the Filyovskaya which has a longer surface section between Kievskaya and Kuntsevskaya with 7 above ground stations.

The first line opened on 15 May 1935 between Sokol'niki and Park Kul'tury with a branch to Smolenskaya which reached Kievskaya in April 1937 (crossing Moskva river on a bridge). Two more lines were opened before World War II. In March 1938 the Arbatskaya line was extended to Kurskaya station (now Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya - dark blue line). In Sept. 1938 the Gorkovsko-Zamoskvoretskaya line opened between Sokol and Teatral'naya (without Tverskaya station which was added in 1979).

The projects of the third stage of the Moscow metro were delayed during the War. Two metro sections were put into service: Teatralnaya - Avtozavodskaya (3 stations, crossing the Moskva river in a deep tunnel) and Kurskaya - Partizanskaya (ex Izmaylovskiy Park - 4 stations).

After the War construction started on the fourth stage of the metro, which included the Kol'tsevaya line and a deep part of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line from Pl. Revolyutsii to Kievskaya.

The Kol'tsevaya line was planned first as a line running under the Sadovoye Koltso (Garden Ring), a boulevard ring running along the limits of 16th century Moscow. The first part of the line - from Park Kul'tury to Kurskaya (1950) is indeed situated under this boulevard. But later plans were changed and the northern part of the ring line runs 1-1.5 km outside the Sadovoye Koltso, thus providing service for 7 (out of 9) railway stations. The next part of the Kol'tsevaya line opened in 1952 (Kurskaya - Belorusskaya) and in 1954 the ring line was completed.

Photos © Boris Kogut

The reason for the construction of a deep part of the Arbatskaya was the beginning of the Cold War. Stations are very deep and were planned to serve for hiding people even in the case of nuclear war. After finishing the line in 1953, the upper tracks between Pl.Revolyutsii and Kievskaya were closed. In fact they were reopened in 1958 as a part of the Filyovskaya. In the further development of the metro, the term stages was not used anymore, although sometimes the stations opened in 1957-1958 are referred to as the fifth stage.

The Moscow Metro has standard Russian gauge, 1524 mm, and third rail supply. The average distance between stations is 1800 m (!), the shortest with 585 m is between Aleksandrovskiy Sad and Arbatskaya (Line 4) and the longest with 6.6 km between Krylatskoye and Strogino. At 86 m below the surface, Park Pobedy is among the deepest stations in the world. The long distances between stations has the positive effect of a commercial speed of 42 km/h.

Since the 1970's, platforms have been built 155 m long, prepared for 8-car trains. Trains on lines 2, 6, 7 and 9 consist of 8 cars, on lines 1, 3, 8, 10 of 7 cars and on lines 4, 5 and 11 of 6 cars. All cars (both older E-series and newer 81-series) are 20 m long with four doors on either side. The Moscow metro train is identical to those used in all ex-Soviet metro cities (St. Petersburg, Nizhni Novgorod, Minsk, Kiev, Kharkov, etc.) and in Budapest and Prague (see links below for more details on trains).

Whereas most transfer stations have two separate stations carrying two different names and connected by foot tunnels, 3 offer comfortable cross-platform transfer, between lines 6 and 7 at Kitay-Gorod, between lines 2 and 11 at Kashirskaya and between lines 6 and 8 at Tret'yakovskaya.

Photos © Boris Kogut

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Line 1: Sokol'nicheskaya (Kirovsko-Frunzenskaya) 19 stations - 26.2 km

Line 2: Zamoskvoretskaya 20 stations - 36.9 km

Line 3: Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya 18 stations - 37.7 km

Line 4: Filyovskaya 13 stations - 14.9 km

Line 5: Kol'tsevaya (ring line) 12 stations - 19.3 km

Line 6: Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya 24 stations - 37.9 km

Line 7: Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya 19 stations - 35.9 km
Between Tushinskaya and Shchukinskaya provisions for another station, Volokolamskaya, were made.

Line 8: Kalininskaya 7 stations - 13.1 km

Line 9: Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya 25 stations - 41.5 km

Line 10: Lyublinskaya - 12 stations - 20.7 km

Line 11: Kakhovskaya - 3 stations - 3.4 km
Operated as a branch of Line 2 from Kashirskaya to Kakhovskaya until 1995.

Line L1: Butovskaya - "Light Metro" - 5 stations - 5.5 km (90 m long platforms)

Line M1: Monorail - 6 stations - 4.7 km

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See each line for detailed history and view 1970 network map

 Projects

The following sections are currently under construction:

2009 - Line 10 (2.93 km) - stations Dostoyevskaya and Mar'ina Roshcha
2009 - Line 3 (4.2 km) - stations Myakininskaya and Volokolamskaya

More details about Moscow Metro projects (by Yuri Popov)

The Moscow Metro operates between 6:00 and 1:00 and about 8 million people use the system every day. Frequency of trains is 90 seconds during rush hours and 2-4 minutes during the rest of the day. 10 minutes headway after midnight.

- FARES (2008) for the metro only:

Single - 19.00
5 trips within 30 days - 84.00
10 trips within 30 days - 155.00
20 trips within 30 days - 280.00

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Moscow Metro - Official Site

Metrowalks.ru - The Ultimate Photo Gallery including all Moscow metro stations by Igor Vanin

Moscow Metro at Wikipedia

Artemiy Lebedev's extensive metro.ru site (in Russian only) incl. lots of maps (new 2003 official map)

Yuri Gridchin's Metropoliten site includes an animated history map

Underground Dream - Great page with many photographs

Mockobckoe Metpo - Moscow Metro

Moye Metro (My Metro) by Kernel32 & Grozny

Paleometro by Alexandr Mironenko

Peter Donn's Underground Stations includes excellent pictures of some stations

Moscow Metasubway station

Metrowagonmash has pictures and details on old and new metro cars

METROCARS - Anything about Metro Trains in the ex-USSR

Voices in the Underground by Artemiy Y. Lomov

Mir Metro - Metroworld by Dmitry Aksenov, Di. Vendox and Andrey Surikov

Moscow Transport includes updated map (2/2000 showing future light rail lines)

Mini-Metro (Project to Moskva-City)

METRO - not at first sight by Artemiy Y. Lomov

Moscow Metro Photo Collection by Bee Flowers (showing many details of city centre stations)

UrbanRail.Net's Moscow Metro Gallery

MosMetrostroy

Metrostroy (Metro construction) by Andrey Surikov

Di. Vendox' Photos (Sokol Workshop, a.o.)

Interactive Metro Map With Search! - finds the shortest way between stations online

Moscow Monorail

Moscow Metro Track Map

Exact location of stations drawn over Google Map

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Vokrug Sveta: MOSCOW METRO 1935-2005. - Great illustrated book on the fabulous Moscow Metro (text in English).

Vokrug Sveta: Moskovskoye Metro. - Station to station guide of the fabulous Moscow Metro (2005 edition).

Valentin Beresin: DIE MOSKAUER METRO. BILDREISEFÜHRER. - 1986, 202 p., 12x19 cm, Planeta Verlag, Moskau. Schöner kleiner Bildband (alles in Farbe) mit allen bis zum Erscheinungsdatum bestehenden Stationen der Moskauer Metro Nice and small pictorial guide (all in colour) to the fabulous Moscow Metro stations (also available in English - please specify in your order) Text deutsch (or English)

Neutatz, Dieter: DIE MOSKAUER METRO. - Böhlau, Köln; ISBN: 3412125008.- 664 pages, 2001