Hustle and Bustle: the Moscow Metro

Going to Russia, I highly anticipated riding the Moscow metro. Arriving to the airport, although very, very, exhausted from traveling, I was awaiting my first ride on the metro. First off, I needed to ride the airport shuttle that connected to the Belorusskaya (Белорусская) metro station in order to reach my final destination for the time being off of the Dinamo (Динамо) station. I probably would have grown frustrated upon arriving to the metro stations if I had not had Boyfriend's cousin with me, because everything is in Russian. I know how to read Russian, but understanding it is another story. So I survived my first metro experience thanks to him. For the sake of efficiency perhaps (or a welcoming), Sasha (boyfriend's cousin) let me pass the metro turnstiles with his metro card, so I didn't yet have to bother purchasing a metro card. 

Mayakovskaya Station ( Маяковская), considered to
be the most beautiful of all stations in Moscow.

Just from being inside my first metro station, it had lived up exactly to my expectations: monumental, soviet, elegant, grande, ... I should look into a thesaurus for more words. The bustle of the people in the station prevented me from looking like a gaping tourist. The amount of people using the metro system was incredible enough by itself as well. The Moscow metro is the 2nd busiest metro system, next to Tokyo's- which takes first. In Tokyo people are shoved into the metro cars like sardines by the metro officers; I'm glad that Moscow isn't quite like that, but it does happen, more or less, during rush hours, sans the officers. As I walked through connecting tunnels that popped out to larger spaces, I felt like an ant in a colony. watching the efficiency, the population, and the hustle and bustle of the people made it feel more like a proper underground ant colony- and I loved it. It's a beautiful dynamic that Moscow has. When the metro came to the platform, it resembled a long worm that seemed to never end- each train had at least 8 cars, and each car always at least 3/4 full.


After my return from St. Petersburg, I got to experience more of the metro, which included buying my first 10-trip metro card. Sasha wanted me to participated in this "experiment", as he called it, to see how an American can get by buying a metro pass in a place where English isn't as widely spoken, especially with the older ex-soviet population.  It wasn't as hard as I thought. I knew how to say ticket at least, so I bluntly said "Билет" and held up 10 fingers. The woman behind the desk simply pointed at the price on the register, and I paid my 285 rubles (about $8.50 USD) for my ticket. And that was that. I think Sasha was left just a bit surprised. 

a detail showing the soviet emblems located in the
Mayakovskaya Station ( Маяковская)

From station to station (and even throughout the city above), I noticed that the soviet emblem (hammer and sickle) were still in place, untouched, even after communism fell in Russia. Personally I love how the emblems are still undisturbed in the metro system. How I see it, it still somewhat represents the labor force of the population that goes through the system on a daily basis- to work, to school, to anywhere... but without such communist government of course.

a not-so-busy day at the metro platforms. trust me, i couldn't
even reach for my camera when i wanted to take a picture of the rush hour traffic.

After about my 3rd day in Moscow, I started feeling more comfortable using the Metro, although I never used it alone. I got to buy another 10-trip pass by myself again, surprising another of boyfriend's cousins. Sometimes, I would go to the correct platform without actually following him. It more more of character recognition, or even intuition, when it came to moving along the metro corridors. It is a little scary moving around in a strange land I'll admit without looking confused, but what a beautiful strange land it is. I think next time I visit Russia, I will be able to move around by myself. I'll leave it up to me to impress myself later. Being confused without looking confused is an art. And I believe I have almost mastered that with my travel experience.

taking an escalator down to the platforms
... it looks never ending from the top!

I recommend to search "Moscow Metro" on Google images or Flickr , because I did a horrible job at photo-documenting such a beautiful aspect of Moscow. Perhaps next time I'll become a classy, gaping, tourist going station to station photographing the heck out of them.