Handpicked experience · Moscow
Moscow, RussiaInstant Confirmation
A bronze dog's nose polished gold by students, seventy-six figures none of whom is standing up, and a wall that has been repainted continuously since 1990.
Bronze worn to gold by decades of superstition
An architectural constraint that became a national joke
Church-window craft in a working transport hall
A street pedestrianised before most in the country
A memorial that survives by being repainted rather than protected
Three hours with a guide: several of the decorated Moscow metro stations, short rides between them, and then a walk the length of Old Arbat, with pickup from a central hotel.
At Ploshchad Revolyutsii, seventy-six bronze figures sit in the arches along the platform: soldiers, farmers, students, engineers, a border guard with a German shepherd.
The dog's nose is worn to bright gold. Students rub it for luck before examinations, and enough of them do it, often enough, that the metal has been polished down through the patina. You will see people do it without breaking stride on their way to the escalator, and you will probably do it yourself.
Look along the row and you notice everyone is crouching, kneeling, sitting or stooping. Not one of the seventy-six stands upright.
The reason is architectural: the arches are too low for full-height figures, and the sculptor worked to the space he was given. But a joke went round Moscow at the time that the whole Soviet people had been depicted either on their knees or sitting down, and it has followed the station ever since. Both things are true at once, which is why it is still repeated.
Novoslobodskaya is lined with more than thirty backlit stained-glass panels, glowing in a corridor of brass and marble underground. The glass was made in Latvia by craftsmen whose previous work had been church windows in Riga, and it shows — the technique is ecclesiastical, applied to a transport hall.
Elsewhere on the network you get baroque ceiling mosaics of military heroes, chandeliers, bronze reliefs and marble quarried across the union. These were public halls by intent: the argument was that ordinary people should pass through something magnificent on the way to work, and whatever you make of the politics, the halls were built and they are still in daily use.
Old Arbat has been a pedestrian street since 1986, one of the first in the country, and the buildings along it carry more recent history than the shopfronts suggest.
Viktor Tsoi, the singer of the band Kino, died in a car accident in 1990. Someone wrote a line about it on a wall here, others added to it, and the wall has been continuously written on, painted over and written on again ever since. It is not maintained by anyone official. Further along, Pushkin took a flat at number 53 with Natalia Goncharova after their marriage in 1831, and the building is now a museum.
The metro is a working transport system carrying millions of people a day, so the tour avoids the worst of the rush but the platforms are never empty. Escalators are long, steep and fast — hold the handrail and stand to the right.
Old Arbat is entirely on foot and mostly flat. Photography in the stations is fine; tripods and lighting rigs are not. Trains are frequent enough that nothing is missed by waiting for the next one.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Ploshchad Revolyutsii, on the dark blue line. It opened in 1938 and sits in the middle of the network, so it is easy to reach on your own later.
The sculptor Matvey Manizer. The set was dismantled and moved out of Moscow during the war, then reinstalled afterwards.
Yes. Every one is crouching, kneeling, sitting or stooping, because the arches were too low for full-height figures.
Close. The street sits within the central ring, so the walking half of the tour begins a short ride from the last station stop.
Craftsmen in Latvia whose earlier work had been church windows in Riga. The technique is ecclesiastical, applied to a transport hall.
Several central lines run deep enough to double as shelters, which is why the descent takes as long as it does.
A memorial to Viktor Tsoi of the band Kino, who died in 1990. It has been written on, painted over and written on again ever since, with no official upkeep.
Yes. Tripods and lighting rigs are the exception; a handheld camera or phone is not a problem.