Inside the Drawing Board of the Soviet Subway

March 20, 2023

©David Burden

It doesn’t get much better than this, especially for a morning commute: space-age chandeliers, marble statues, ‘golden’ ornaments, and a floor so clean you lick your lunch clean off it. Well, it’s all a part of the Moscow Metro, which has been shuttling Russians to-and-fro in opulent style since 1935. The stops were designed to reflect all the glory Soviet Russia hoped to deliver, and to this day the 200 stations serve millions of passengers with palatial, state-of-the-art flair. They’re even streaming the World Cup in some trains — but we digress…Creating such a beacon of svet, or “light” 84 metres underground isn’t easy. Architects followed design principles of sveltloe buduschee (bright future) to carve out vast, airy spaces that look like they’d fallen straight from Alexander Palace…

For ages, the stations slipped under the radar of the West. Then, a few years ago, photographer David Burdeny captured some of the most remarkable photos to date of the finished stops…