What would we get if we first take twelve million people from allover Eurasia and fence them into an area about the size of Tahiti or Martinique right in the middle of East European Plain? While collecting these people we give them enough time to mix with each other (about 900 years should do the trick), then, finally, we add the highest amount of billionaires in the world, insanely huge and controversial Socialist legacy and rampant corruption. Now, the outcome should be something similar to the city of Moscow.
In deed the Russian capital is huge. It's almost incomprehensible (as is Russia for many people). But there's still something highly comprehensible in the Third Rome (one of many nicknames Moscow's got in due course of those nine centuries of its existence). Moscow can boast with many things but from the perspective of an average Muscovite there's nothing quite like the Moscow metro or the metropolitan as it's called more officially.
Moscow metro consists of 182 stations, twelve lines (which extend far out onto the suburban railways system), 301 kilometers of tracks and it transports daily from six to nine million people. The only more heavily used rapid transport system in the world is Greater Tokyo's twin subway. The Moscow metro is indeed undoubtedly one of the wonders of the man-made world. Have look at the map:
Apart from the facts and figures the Moscow metro is by now a system I use and handle every day. It took some time for me to learn just how exactly it works. For example (unlike in so many other rapid transport systems I've used so far) the junction stations almost never share the same name. In other words this means that confusingly enough every platform on a junction station has its own name (as is the case e.g. with the quartet junction of Alexandrovsky Sad, Arbatskaya, Smolenskaya and Kiyevskaya stations). This has to do with the history of the metro system: the first five lines where constructed primarily during Stalin's regime in the 30's and 40's (as a matter of fact so was most of modern Moscow). This meant that any notable projects received a certain scale and grandeur. Thus every new metro station gave an exceptionally good possibility to build yet an other monument to commemorate the achievements of the young Socialist state and the brave Soviet project of which the Moscow metropolitan was part of.
Although the Soviet engineers and the construction workers who build the metro system considered themselves to be pioneers of the technical progress of mankind they still couldn't do it completely on their own: some assistance was invited from the city of London (a city that can boast with the oldest underground rapid transport system in the world). As a reminder of this brief Anglo-Soviet cooperation there is an entire subway station in London's Gants Hill (mind the link!). I'll make sure to go and see it next time I'm in London.
When strolling around in the Moscow metro one cannot avoid being astonished by the diversity and richness of art: there are mosaics, frescoes and statues almost on every one of the older metro stations. My personal favorite is the Площадь революции (Ploshchad Revolyutsii meaning the Revolution Square) and, as you can see in the picture below, there's more to the station than just the name. The station reflects perfectly the spirit of the age when it was build: there's a statue for every trade and profession there was in Soviet Union in the early 1930's (before the brunt of Stalin's repressions began). What is even more noteworthy about these statues is that there are always both male and female counterparts for every profession (yes, including engineers, farmers, firefighters, officers, journalists etc.). There also few examples of different nationalities or, if I may say so, races (Caucasians, Northern Natives and Asians):
Apart from the wonders of the metro system there's the reality and because I haven't whined about anything here on my blog for a while now, I think, now's a good time for that. So, please bare with me, while I tell you in depth about an adventure I have to undertake every day.
As I told you earlier in June I live in the leafy suburb of Uhtomskaya and the closest metro station for me is the one in Vykhino (the last station on the purple line). In order to get there I need to take a commuter train which goes directly to that aforementioned station. The first inconvenience on my way to work is the fact that these commuter trains are practically always crammed with people. And when I say crammed I do not mean that there are not enough seats for everybody to sit. I mean the train is so ******* full that one hardly can get in it! By now I'm accustomed to use some soft form of violence in order to push those fat grannies and muscular hood gangstas more tightly in and to fit my scrawny body and my rucksack into the aisle. Usually the doors slam shut so close to my nose that I'm honestly scared that some part of my body might get crumple or stuck. Luckily I've been fortunate enough to avoid this. So far.
The next annoyance is the heat. In the aisle between the two doors there's no draft what-so-ever (the opened windows are further away). There's only heat and sweaty skin of your fellow passengers rubbing against your own. At this point I always regret that I took a shower before leaving for work: once I get out of the train in Vykhino I'm so ******* sweaty that I cant stand it even myself. Blah!
Thirdly there's the Vykhino station itself. This is how it looks like on any average morning:
It's useless to comment the amount of people on the platform in Vykhino. There's just a lot of folk there, okay? Just ridiculously amount. By now I've learn to ignore or even grin at the situation but I must point out that there were few occasions, in the beginning of my time here in Moscow, when all did not work out that well. To be bumped would have been the least of my worries then. Once I even got kicked in the ass (apparently some drunkard found my face displeasing). Now, that's enough for Vykhino.
During the rush hour Moscow metro operates extremely well: there's a metro train twice within a minute. That might sound like an exaggeration or even dangerous to have so many moving trains simultaneously in the underground system but trust me - it's fine. In fact it is just enough to take care of those nine million people using this system daily. The Russian state or the Moscow municipality might have many flaws but when it comes to public transport the Soviet heritage is still substantial: everything works to the best of the systems abilities which, at least in the case of Moscow, means fairly good indeed. So, to be honest, I haven't really got anything more to whine about (except the incomprehensible crowdedness).
Still, we have the most grim topic left. Besides Vykhino I use two metro stations daily. First one is the Lubyanka station (where I change from the purple line to the red one) and the other one is Park Kul'tury (the station closest to the embassy). Both of these stations were scenes to a suicide bombing on the 29th of March in 2010 (have a look at the map):
Honestly, I try not to think of the risk I take daily when getting into the metro: there has been one act of terror in the Moscow metro and frankly speaking the Moscow police doesn't have any real means to prevent an other one from happening. With nine million people pouring in and out of the underground daily there are no ways of controlling who gets in and who doesn't. But acts like these (just as the ones that took place yesterday in Oslo and Utöya) cannot possible be ignored. At least I cannot.
The world is a deranged place where no one seems to be interested in anything else than their own well-being. It seems that one of the few things that can truly drag our attention away from ourselves (even for a moment!) is an act of most horrifying violence. This, I believe, is the ultimate problem of our time: our own numbness and lack of compassion. Believe it or not but the political and economical system we're a part of and the very world we keep in shape is based on ideas that are fundamentally twisted and wrong. The Kremlin, while dealing with the problems on the Caucasus solely on the basis of its own political and economical interests, does not and will not understand this. Neither will the Norwegian government or any government in the industrialized world for that matter. And nothing will change unless we make it happen. As always the choice is yours and mine or in a word - ours.
Yours in turmoil,
Stefan
PS. I was writing this with a extremely cuddly cat on my lap. Hence the hasty mistakes.
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