The Metro

For years, a favorite joke in the West was that the people of Moscow had a clean, sumptuous, artistically constructed subway, admirable in every respect except one: there were no trains. Unlike many other jokes about Soviet Russia, this one contained no grain of truth. The Moscow subway trains run, and they run well.

This week Moscow's hordes of subway-riding white-collar workers and bureaucrats were full of stir as workmen put the finishing touches on a new subway line. It is the first segment of a Great Circle line that will intersect the present three spokelike crosstown lines (see map). When the Great Circle is completed, the center of Moscow will have a fine system: a passenger will be able to get from almost anywhere to almost anywhere in the city by changing trains only once.

In Moscow's Metro, each station has an architectural motif. The murals in the new station at the Central Park of Culture and Rest are devoted to "Leisure for the Working Classes." On a wall are the words of the 119th article of the Stalin Constitution: "Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure." Wall relief sculpture depicts musicians, sportsmen and dancers. At another station, the motif is "Victory of the Soviet People over Fascism"; the mosaics show pilots, soldiers & sailors.

There are no turnstiles on the Metro. Tickets are sold at booths, but most riders buy tickets in advance by the book. The passengers descend to the platforms by long ramps or escalators. Everything is brightly lighted, frequently by indirect ceiling lighting. An attendant tears off a part of the ticket, as in a U.S. movie house. Most of the subway attendants and some of the drivers are women.

Most trains consist of six cars; the first car has a roped-off section for children, invalids and pregnant women. Seats, which run down the side of the cars, are upholstered with brown leather. There is no straphanging: standing passengers hold on to bars. The cars are bright, clean and semi-soundproofed, so that conversation is possible. But there are no wall ads to entertain or annoy the traveler.

The Metro is closed from 1 until 6 in the morning. Rush hours occur just about the same time as in a U.S. city. The crowds are heavy too, but they do not push their way in & out of cars with the blunt fury of stampeding cattle (as is customary in New York City). Said one U.S. correspondent formerly stationed in the Soviet capital: "The Russian people just move along ploddingly; they are not nearly so ferocious."

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