Folk Museum of Moscow Metro

The first proposals for the creation of an underground transport system in Moscow appeared in 1875, but were embodied only in Soviet times . By the 1930s, the population of Moscow increased sharply, and ground transportation could not cope with the loads, in connection with which a decision was made to build a subway ^[2] . The metro construction project was led by statesman Lazar Kaganovich , and already in 1935 the first lines were put into operation ^[3] .

Underground comrade mole His mouth went wide. Electricity is buzzing Underground the tram goes. In the Moscow River Crucian Looking through a hole through the mud Underground faster than burbot Trains pass by. - Vladimir Mayakovsky on the construction of the Moscow metro [4]

In 1935, the idea came up of organizing a museum dedicated to the construction of the subway, but the opening only happened in 1967 on the personal initiative of labor veterans and the first female machinist Zinaida Troitskaya . Former metro workers independently collected documents, photographs and samples of equipment ^{[1] [2]} . Most of the collection was donated to the museum by private individuals, including equipment that was decommissioned ^{[5] [1]} . In the early years, the museum functioned in a small room, but after the reconstruction carried out before the 1980 Olympics , the exhibition halls were significantly expanded ^[2] .

The museum is called “folk” because the collection was collected without state participation - by individuals and subway employees ^[6] . Before closing for repairs in 2016, the exposition was organized in chronological order: from the moment the metro was created to the development plan adopted in 2015 ^[1] .

The collection includes plans for the first underground projects of the beginning of the 20th century , as well as photographs of Moscow at that time and the first means of road transport: horse trams , buses and trolleybuses . A separate stand talked about the driver Mikhail Shpolyansky, who became the first to take a train along the Komsomolskaya – Sokolniki section. In the hall devoted to the architecture of the subway, collections of marble , photographs of frescoes , mosaics and stucco moldings were exhibited. The stations were built in the classicism style - high arches improved the sanitary condition of the stations, were cheap to operate and ideologically advantageous: when the population of Moscow went down to the ground, it felt like a “bright future” ^[2] .

A separate exposition was allocated for construction tools: a pickaxe , a shovel and a jackhammer were stored here. Since the mechanization of construction was technically impossible in the early 1930s, about 75,000 people worked on the construction of the first lines. Here stands the first wooden turnstile , commissioned in the mid- 1950s . Until that moment, small automatic devices and controllers operated in the metro, checking tickets directly in cars ^[2] .

The museum's collection contains items related to the history of the subway during the Great Patriotic War . Among them are a memorial plaque to fallen employees, photographs of stations that functioned as shelters , and documents about an armored train built with underground money in 1943 and participating in battles on the Kursk Bulge . The armored train held the defenses on a 30-kilometer section of the front and played an important role in the victory of Soviet soldiers . To find documents and photographs related to the armored train, museum staff traveled to the Kursk region . Here, in the shed of one of the villages, they found the picture " The Last Battle of the Moscow Metro Armored Train ", written by an unknown artist from the words of Nikolai Ryltsov, the son of a local railway officer who was present at the battle ^[2] . Immediately there was a model of the registered train “ People’s Militia ”, the interior of which is decorated with military posters ^[7] .

Until 2016, the museum exhibited items related to the internal structure of the subway : a tunnel model, a contact rail , an electric receiver lamp, a rolling track gauge , electric cables and traffic lights that were previously used to regulate the movement of trains ^[2] .

The last hall was devoted to automation , it contained a train control system - a real centralization console , used at Molodezhnaya station from 1965 to 2009 , and a modern system displayed on the monitor . Visitors could set the routes, as well as simulate the appearance of trains ^[2] . There was also a driver’s cabin in 1970 , in which the guides told how the staff is controlled and in what sequence the driver performs his actions. The exposition ended with a showcase in which the evolution of the Moscow metro schemes was presented ^[2] .

• Grechko M. The classified lines of the Moscow metro in schemes, legends, facts. - M .: AST, 2014 .-- S. 55. - 320 p.
• Mayakovsky V. Complete Works. - M .: State Publishing House of Fiction, 1957. - S. 420.
• Suprunenko Yu. Moscow underground. - M .: Veche, 2011 .-- S. 57.
• Tsarenko A. Moscow Metro named after V. Lenin. - M .: Transport, 1979. - S. 6-7.

• Museum page on the Museums of Russia portal
• Museum Documentary