metro art

My time in Moscow is already more than half done, so I'm busily working in the archives and not blogging much recently. But I did take my camera along on some errands I ran today and snapped some pictures in the famous Moscow metro.

Anyone who lives in Moscow spends a lot of time in the metro. The system is vast, with transfer stations hundreds of meters apart. For this reason, the Stalinist architects who built it aspired to make it a "palace of the people." Each station is different, but all are monumental and filled with decorative flairs.

Here's one of the ceiling decorations at Belorusskaia metro, right by my house. There are dozens of them lining the roof, and all show variations on the theme of the "friendship of nations" between Russians and Belorussians.

One of my favorite stations, in terms of both themes and artistry, is Kievskaia, decorated with mosaics that show different episodes in the "friendship" between Russia and Ukraine. (Verka Serdiuchka, sadly, is absent.)

Here, for example, are the peasants and workers of Ukraine hailing Soviet power.



This is the entrance to the metro, showing typical Ukrainian peasant costumes.