Art and Decor of Moscow Metro Stations

The Metro began operating in Moscow in 1935 with a single 11 km line connecting just thirteen stations, but it has since grown into the world’s fourth busiest transit system, spanning more than 300 kilometers and offering 188 stops along the way. The Moscow Metro was one of the USSR’s most extravagant architectural projects, with stations constructed as luxurious “palaces for the people”. Built under the command of Stalin, the iron-fisted leader ordered the metro’s artists and architects to design a structure that embodied svet (radiance or brilliance) and svetloe budushchee (a radiant future). He directed his architects to design structures which would encourage citizens to look up, admiring the station’s art, as if they were looking up to admire the sun and—by extension—him as a god. With their reflective marble walls, high ceilings and grandiose chandeliers, many Moscow Metro stations have been likened to an “artificial underground sun”. The art includes bas-reliefs, friezes, marble and bronze statues, stained-glass windows and countless mosaics made with glass, marble and granite in good Byzantine fashion. You can find the images of the former revolutionary and historical characters, their victories, sports, industry, agriculture, and warfare, as well as of common Soviet people such as workers, soldiers, farmers, and students. Russia’s glorious architectural movement came to an end in 1955 after the Communist Party issued a decree eliminating “extravagance in design and construction.” After Stalin’s death in 1953 and the subsequent process of destalinization, his images were gradually withdrawn from the Moscow Metro. Sculptures were taken to storage facilities, and mosaics and reliefs were simply removed. New stations that were built during this time were devoid of any stucco work, mosaics, original columns or other “unjustified” elements.