St Petersburg First Day, 3 of 11 Underground Metro Experience

St. Petersburg Metro system has five different lines with a total of 72 stations and it covers about 124 kilometres in all. It is also one of the deepest underground railway systems in a the world with its deepest station being 86 metres below ground level. About 2 million people use the metro lines each day so it is a busy efficient way of travelling across the city.

Our first stop after visiting the riverside sphinxes was to visit one of the underground railway stations and experience the everyday commute that Petersburgians do every day.

The concept of building an underground railway system began as early as 1938 and whilst deep shafts had been by constructed by 1941, work ceased during the Second World War due to lack of funding and manpower. In 1947 work began in constructing a subway and 10 years after the war on October 7th 1955 the city's first underground transport system with 7 stations, was opened. 

Since this time there has been continual expansion of metro lines and stations across the city and today there are plans to extend these systems ever further. 

One of the reasons for having an extremely deep metro system was that the tunnels were built to double-up as bomb shelters in case of nuclear attack during the Cold War years. Another reason is that much of the city lies on marshland and therefore the tunnels needed to built below the waterway bed.

Following a 2017 terrorist attack in which 14 people died and 50 were injured and with the more recent escalation of terrorist threats, all metro stations in St Petersburg are now linked to CCTV surveillance systems. Since the CCTV system was installed at leasttwo terrorist attacks have been aborted. adopted. 

We were impressed with the highly decorative station platforms that we visited. Admiraleyskaya station where our tour began, is one of the newest stations and the deepest station in the city. We had to travel down two very long escalators to reach the station 86 metres underground. What a unique experience! We'd never had such a long, deep escalator ride before. It made Sydney's Wynard escalator ride seem like a zip in comparison.  

Admiraleyskaya station is built near to the Admiralty, hence its name and the theme of its decor. The station's platform precinct walls are decorated with huge mosaic-tiled frescoes depicting the historic naval scenes and portraits of Russian admirals and naval leaders. They are impressive works of art and honour Russia's naval past. 

We boarded a carriage of one of the metro trains and travelled underground with local passengers. The carriage we were in was fairly full with many passengers standing and hanging onto ceiling rails but it was not as "sardined -packed" as the trains on the Tokyo or Monti Carlo metros that we have travelled. The design of the rolling stock was simple and practical, with soft lighting and automatic doors. There was limited seating ad they are designed to move as many commuters as possible ascrss the city.

The station that we alighted from had an equally impressive persona. It opened in 1997 and was named Sportivnaya because of its proximity to two major sporting stadiums and opened in 1997 and was very clean and modern.The walls of Sportivnaya station have been designed with tiled mosaics of sporting scenes from the Greek origins of the Olympic Games and the mosaics have been created with multi-coloured glittering tiles. It all looks so impressive with scenes depicting athletes, medallions and even a scene from the ancient ceremony of the lighting of the flame in Olympia. These mosaics are further enhanced by a series of  "Greek" lamps which illuminate the station platform and precinct and reflect light onto the ceilings. Even the long row of lights that illuminate the lengthy escalator-ride, are in the form of modern Olympic torches. 

Since returning home I have surfed the net and 'visited' many more of the metro stations in St. Petersburg. Not only have I been impressed by the architectural design of the stations but the unique and varying decors of the station platforms have been refreshingly expressive and meaningful.  The Metro in St Petersburg has become a mecca of artistic architecture and creative expression for tourist like us.. Its scale is grand and exotic and beautiful and should not be missed.