Moscow’s underground transit system is now more than 80 years old, and carries up to 9 million passengers through more than 200 stations every day. Most of the architecture and decor was built decades ago, meant to be a showcase for Soviet artists, ideals, and icons. The system is now modernizing, in part, preparing for the 2018 World Cup, which will be hosted in Russia. Several Reuters photographers have captured images of the varied and unique Moscow Metro stations, as well as the workers and passengers underground, over the past year.
Scenes From the Moscow Metro
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A station manager controls trains coming and leaving the platform as she sits in a booth at Zhulebino metro station on April 18, 2017. Another visible change is the controversial replacement of many of the elderly women who used to sit in a booth at the bottom of the seemingly endless escalators, who were famous for telling passengers off if they sat down on the escalator steps. One attendant known by locals as Auntie Lyuda was famous for telling jokes on Mondays, reading poems and telling passengers to imagine they were in England—if passengers want to walk up and down the steps of the escalator, they should do so on the left. Now the attendants are mainly young men, and have yet to show any skill in bantering with passengers. #
Grigory Dukor / Reuters -
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People walk during rush hour in Kievskaya metro station on April 17, 2017. At Kievskaya, a station built in 1954, when Ukraine was firmly a part of the Soviet Union, this vivid mosaic dedicated to Russian-Ukrainian friendship occupies one wall. #
Grigory Dukor / Reuters -
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