The metro in Russia began to be designed at the end of the 19th century, but with all the development of technology, it does not exist even in all cities with a population of one million. Residents and guests of eight large settlements of our country use the metro today.
Unusual trains
The first subway in Russia was built, of course, in the capital. The metro was opened in 1935, since then it has been actively developed, and now the Moscow metro is second only to the Tokyo and Seoul metro in terms of passenger traffic. The system consists of 12 lines that extend even to the Moscow region. There are 190 stations located on them, and due to the design features and the depth of their placement, most can be used as a refuge in case of an emergency.
During the war, Muscovites fled to the subway from Nazi bombings.
Since the metro is generally called any city railroad that is cut off from street traffic, the monorail is also referred to it. This type of transport is also available in Moscow, it connects the All-Russian Exhibition Center and the Timiryazevskaya station.
There is also a non-standard metro in Volgograd. A tram moves along underground and open sections of the track. The metro line has 22 stations, and in case of development, underground tracks can be easily converted to run conventional metro trains.
The most-most metro
The second in terms of age and volume of passenger traffic in Russia is the St. Petersburg Metro. It was opened in 1955 and for half a century of existence, the number of lines was increased to five, and stations - to 67. Moreover, construction began even before the war, but during the battles the launched stations had to be flooded.
Due to the peculiarities of the soil, the metro builders used unique technologies in St. Petersburg: they made their way through granite, froze floaters, and blocked underground rivers.
The St. Petersburg metro was recognized as the deepest in the world: stations and stretches were lowered as much as possible in order to bypass dangerous sections.
The third place in terms of traffic volume is occupied by the Novosibirsk Metro - the only one beyond the Urals. One of its advantages is a unique metro bridge across the Ob, which connects the two halves of the city. It is the longest metro bridge in the world (2145 m including coastal overpasses). The metro system, opened in 1985, has only two lines and 13 stations. None of them is recognized as an object of civil defense: the depth of occurrence does not allow them to escape from explosions.
Safe novelty
In other Russian cities, the metro takes a slightly more modest place in the passenger transport system. For example, in Nizhny Novgorod these are two lines with 14 shallow stations. Samara has nine stations on one line.
Kazan has the youngest subway - it was built after the collapse of the USSR and opened in 2005. Kazan Metro is the safest in the country. But in Yekaterinburg there is both a traditional metro (the fourth in terms of passenger traffic in the country) and a city train with the possibility of transferring to the subway.
