Building the Moscow Metro

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More than 10,000 Russian workers built the first line of the Moscow Metro which opened in 1935 to great fanfare.

The spectacular stations were designed to show the world the power and possibility of Russian strength. Stalin wanted architects to design stations to be 'palaces for the people', with statues and structures built to make people look up and admire the marble walls, high ceilings and grand chandeliers.

Now one of the busiest undergrounds in the world, Uma Doraiswamy goes through the archives and hears from Tatiana Fedorova, one of the workers who sometimes had to use her hands to dig the tunnels.

(Photo: The Sokolniki Metro station in Moscow in 1935. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	He is Brian Cox.
0:02.8	Hello.
0:03.3	And he understands science.
0:05.3	I'm Robin Ince and I don't understand it quite so much.
0:09.0	Could it tell us something about the nature of matter?
0:11.3	Nope.
0:12.0	Okay, good.
0:14.2	Together we'll be joined by a collection of experts and non-expert guests.
0:18.6	What's going on?
0:19.8	Don't worry.
0:21.7	Taking a look at some of the most wonderful things
0:24.4	in the scientific world.
0:25.9	Science with Funny Bits, The Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. for downloading this edition of the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Umit Air Storming.
0:47.0	I've been going through the archives to take you on a tour of the Moscow Metro, the underground transport built by the hands of the industrialized
0:55.7	Russian workforce.
0:58.5	Not only is it one of the world's busiest metro systems, around 8 million people use it daily, but it's also one of the most beautiful
1:06.8	as described by the BBC's Steve Rosenberg.
1:10.3	Beneath Moscow there are platforms that look like palaces, stations like museums.
1:17.0	But this is more than just a railway.
1:19.0	It's a time machine. Ride the metro and you're back in the USSR. Joseph Stalin built
1:26.3	this underground as a temple of communism, public transport and propaganda all in one.
1:33.8	Conceived by Stalin in 1931, it was the crowning glory of the Soviet Union's forced industrialization.
	...

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