Moscow Metro stations and transport: architecture route and Troika card

Opened on 15 May 1935 with a single 11-kilometre line and 13 stations, the Moscow Metro has grown into a city-wide network that today includes three separate orbital circle lines: the historic underground Koltsevaya Line (Line 5), the Big Circle Line (Line 11), and the surface Moscow Central Circle (Line 14). With peak-hour trains arriving every 80 to 90 seconds and deep escalators descending 84 metres at Park Pobedy (the deepest station in Moscow), it is both the fastest way across the capital and an underground museum of 1930s to 1950s architecture.

How the Troika card and orbital transfers work

Introduced in April 2013, the reusable contactless Troika card can be obtained at any Metro ticket office or ticket machine and topped up for single journeys ("Wallet" tariff) or unlimited passes for one, three, or more days. Using the Troika Wallet automatically activates the 90-minute transfer option, which covers one entry into the Metro plus free transfers to the 54-kilometre Moscow Central Circle (MCC, opened to passengers on 10 September 2016 along the historic Little Ring of the Moscow Railway) or Moscow Central Diameters (MCD) plus unlimited rides on surface buses and trams within the same 90 minutes. Always tap your card again when transferring between a street-level Metro vestibule and an MCC station so the gate registers a free transfer rather than a new fare.

Self-guided architectural route: six classic stations

A single Metro swipe lets you tour the system's finest pre-war and post-war halls without passing back through the exit turnstiles. Travel between mid-morning and mid-afternoon to avoid commuter crowds:

1. Mayakovskaya (Line 2, Zamoskvoretskaya Line): Opened on 11 September 1938 and designed by Alexey Dushkin in an Art Deco and Futurist style honouring poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, this was the world's first deep-level column station. Its slender arches are clad in corrugated stainless steel and dark-pink Ural rhodonite stone, while 34 visible oval ceiling cupolas (of 35 originally built) hold mosaics by Alexander Deyneka titled Twenty-Four Hours in the Land of the Soviets.
2. Teatralnaya and Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Lines 2 and 3): Ride two stops south to Teatralnaya and walk through the transfer passage to Ploshchad Revolyutsii (1938, also by Alexey Dushkin), where dark Armenian marble arches frame 76 life-size bronze sculptures by Matvey Manizer depicting Soviet workers, athletes, sailors, and border guards.
3. Arbatskaya (Line 3, Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line): One stop west of Ploshchad Revolyutsii, Arbatskaya's 1953 underground hall stretches 250 metres beneath white parabolic plaster vaults, floral relief mouldings, and bronze chandeliers before you exit to Old Arbat Street or transfer back toward the Circle Line.
4. Kiyevskaya (Line 5, Koltsevaya Line): Boarding the brown Circle Line at Kiyevskaya reveals white marble pylons crowned by 18 large smalt-and-stone mosaics designed under E. I. Katonin, V. K. Skugarev, G. E. Golubev, and A. V. Myzin to celebrate historical scenes and post-war reconstruction.
5. Novoslobodskaya (Line 5, Koltsevaya Line): Opened on 30 January 1952 as Alexey Dushkin's final Metro project, Novoslobodskaya illuminates its central hall with 32 backlit stained-glass panels fabricated by Latvian artists in Riga from sketches by Pavel Korin, framed in sculpted brass and Ural marble.
6. Komsomolskaya (Line 5, Koltsevaya Line): Two stops clockwise (past Prospekt Mira) under the three railway terminals of Komsomolskaya Square, Alexey Shchusev's 1952 masterpiece features 68 octagonal Corinthian marble columns supporting a Baroque yellow vault hung with giant chandeliers and eight ceiling mosaics by Pavel Korin depicting Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin, Dmitry Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov, and Mikhail Kutuzov.