jackviolet:

One of the things that is really notable about Moscow and yet not many people outside Russia know about, is how gorgeous the Moscow metro is.

These photos? That’s what the metro stations look like.

Yeah.

They’re called the “People’s palaces of Moscow” or else “Underground palaces,” and they were built during the Soviet era on the Communist idea that art and beauty should belong to the people rather than only being available in the houses of nobles.

These photos show just some of the metro’s attractions. There are many more mosaics, statues, etc, placed throughout.

And the metro is always this clean.

In addition to being beautiful, it is incredibly functional. It gets you pretty much everywhere in Moscow, and the trains run at intervals of every three minutes or less. At peak times, they run every 90 seconds. You never have to worry about missing a train, because the next one will come almost immediately.

Not always of course. In the late evening or early morning hours, you may have to wait as long as five whole minutes for a train. They’re also super easy to navigate.

We Russians are pretty proud of our metro system.