Meet your expert guide outside the Kremlin and head underground with your Moscow metro ticket to discover the city’s underground treasures. See the most interesting stations with extravagant Soviet-era architecture and hear the history surrounding the metro stations from your expert guide.
Widely praised as one of Stalin’s finest architectural achievements, Moscow's subway was created to symbolize his rising regime and a recognized empire. Learn about his successors, who later toned down the ornateness of the subway’s architecture, and see how the different eras are reflected in the character of each station. If you're lucky, you may even find the secret entrance to the unconfirmed Metro-2, a parallel underground system used by the government -- a mystery which has neither been denied nor confirmed today.
Visit Revolution Square Station (Ploschad Revolyutsii) and admire the 72 magnificent bronze sculptures that depict the people of the former Soviet Union, set underneath marble arches designed by the legendary Russian architect Alexey Dushkin. Another Dushkin-created station is Novoslobodskaya, and you’ll head here next to admire its dazzling stained-glass panels.
Discover Baroque d?cor, vaulted ceilings and chandeliers at Komsomolskaya Station, and then marvel at the grandiose and pompous design of Kurskaya Station -- one of the first stations to be built. Its design reflects Stalin’s communist ideals and you’ll note its left-wing slogans on the walls, next to mosaics that symbolize the ‘victory’ of his regime over poverty and starvation.
Finally, pay a visit to Mayakovskaya, the station that’s named after Russian poet Vladmir Mayakovsky, and see why it’s often considered the most beautiful and iconic Moscow Metro station. Gaze upward at some 30 fascinating mosaics that depict Stalin’s vision for a bright Soviet future, and then admire the features of typical pre-World War II architecture that the station embodies. Your tour ends here.