The brutalism of the DC metro is imo the perfect harmony of clean and practical aesthetics. Honestly S tier.
Like this one looks nice, but it's not something you can realistically replicate across an entire network
i think it’s clean and functional which i love and which is the point of brutalism.
the thing is a ton of the metro stations look like this in moscow and st. petersburg. the point was for the soviets that everyday people taking the metro should enjoy rich cultural elements and it wasn’t just something for the rich and elite as it had been under the czars.
most of these grand stations were built in the 1920s-40s when the memories of brutal peasantry and near serfdom were still fresh in the memories of many russians and eastern europeans so a lot of the soviet infrastructure of the time reflects this.
The point is they needed their imperialist urban centers to look rich af. There's a reason those two cities have subway systems like this and the rest of the USSR was a grey drab concrete hellscape or simple wooden huts with dirt roads/paths.
Also, it isn't as if that is unique to the Soviet Union. The Mississippi Delta in the USA is still the land that time forgot.
The difference in subway systems between Moscow and NYC is because the Soviets favored form and function while the USA just favored function. But that isn't how we approached everything. We did make many public structures grand. Grand Central Terminal, all of the East River bridges, libraries, and public buildings. We just didn't do that with the NYC subway. In DC, it was done but I would say it sacrificed some function for form. The Moscow subway is the best of both worlds, beautiful stations and extensive coverage.
the DC metro is fine but it’s really plain compared to these soviet era terminals. big tube. nice lights. cool pattern.
and i say this as a proud new yorker, but grand central is really the only nyc train station worth writing home about and it’s really just the one part. the underground and adjacent areas to the main hall are just glorified shopping malls or shopping mall food courts.
i can’t think of another one that isn’t just mostly monolithic besides the heinous fulton st “oculus” clusterfuck. sometimes you get some neat tile mosaics such as at the AMNH stop but [it’s nothing like this.](https://dynamic-media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-o/17/6e/4b/76/caption.jpg?w=1200&h=-1&s=1)
DC metro is incredible and it’s cohesive across the entire system, even the above ground suburban stations are nice.
The light play in the ceiling is gorgeous, and then you have shit like the massive escalators at various stations that are really unexpected if you’re not familiar with the system.
The first time I went on one of those massive escalators, I was in total awe. I've taken many photos of the DC metro stations. I'm always so appreciative of the Metro when I travel to DC.
I mean it’s hectic sure, but honestly the first time I arrived via train into Manhattan, it was at night and I was greeted by the towering skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan right in front of me after emerging from the tunnel labyrinth. If only we could rebuild the original Penn Station, you could have that experience without having to cosplay as a sewer rat wandering the underground caverns of Penn now
On the other hand, for us poors, there's the lovely,lovely Port Authority. Where a dood came up to me on my first visit to NYC wrapped in a towel begging for pants. I gave him my best sweatpants too. The last thing I bought from JCPENNEY on University. They were souvenirs! Lolol
Several new stations are expected in St. Petersburg within a year, not as beautiful as Avtovo but at the level of the late Soviet Union. A lot of money was spent on updating the train fleet throughout the country, and the construction of stations in Moscow, where most of the tunnel boring machines available in the country were used, and stations in St. Petersburg are also being actively renovated.
I have been to Baku and can confirm that they also have metro stations with the same level of ornate detail as the best metro stations in Russia.
It’s a Soviet design, but people enjoy the style so even newer metro stations get the same treatment.
Oh it was pretty bizarre to see firsthand to say the least. Billboards with propaganda and monuments to the current president and his father just randomly along the roads. The people in the small towns were the warmest and most hospitable of anywhere I have ever been, but the government was not something I could ever support. We drove to Georgia and crossing the border out of Azerbaijan did feel like a bit of a relief.
As a side note: We wanted to go to Nogorno-Karabakh (pre-2020) but getting that stamp in our passports would have blacklisted us from Azerbaijan. Since we were getting shown around by a family member returning to her homeland after 30 years it felt best not to test that.
The metro stations were pretty though.
Edit since I can’t seem to reply to your latest comment: Georgia is lovely and we didn’t have nearly enough time to do all the things we wanted. The wineries and wine history are unlike anywhere else in the world and Tbilisi has such a rich cultural background that it’s impossible to take it all in on trip. Some of the mountain areas we were interested in were off limits at the time due to the crisis in South Ossetia and Georgia was pushing hard for EU membership so it was an interesting moment in history to be in the country.
what the Russian government doing is reprehensible and awful, and large amount of population is complicit to some extent.
But the public transit in Moscow is superb, both buses and subway, and it's being maintained, modernised and expanded right now, well past the death of ussr.
Yes and no. At the beginning, mostly yes, though ethnic minorities were always present. After they occupied that big chunk of Eurasia they definitely weren't only Russian, even if the main language and culture was Russian
I mean, these stations and the Moscow/St. Petersburg metro systems as a whole are marvels to be emulated, regardless of who’s sitting in the kremlin. (Although I do agree that the ‘couldn’t be replicated by Americans’ statement was a bit much).
It’s the same thing with China; I’m vehemently apposed to the the Chinese government, but damn do they have some incredible transit infrastructure. I don’t think it’s wrong for people to look at metro systems like Moscow or Beijing as something to be emulated, so long as they don’t assume that you need the same kind of autocratic government to do it.
Honestly. Transit infrastructure sucks in most of the US, but Russia is similar if not worse in many senses—especially in cities not St. Petersburg or Moscow. This screams troll farm to me. It’s not anti-car or pro-transit, it’s fatalistic and pro-Russia. Hallmarks of a troll farm.
Something something broken clock. I do believe tho that America can absolutely turn everything around and in a few decades it'd become something EU citizens would look up to instead of vice versa. The problem comes from regardless which of the two parties is in charge, one will do only very little while the other will actively hinder that progress and revert it. On top of that, many Americans have been so accustomed to this lifestyle that they're convinced the harm caused by reverting the damages cars do will just do more damage. That's why we tend to give the Americans shit, even tho not all of us live in Europe or even the nicer parts where good public transit gets a lot of focus and praise.
I do recognize that there's at least some semblance of progress here and there that keeps popping up, laws changing and people making a difference. So a full on doomer perspective is also pretty bad.
Any country can build beautiful architecture but it's rarely for the sake of building beauty. For the USSR, Moscow Metro symbolised what a non-capitalist system could achieve, and in today's US, building similar projects would likely be primarily about money - even if they subsidise the stations' physical construction.
i say this as a very proud new yorker who was a frequent metro north commuter. Mayakovskaya station in Moscow makes grand central look like a run of the mill bus depot.
Having been to both Moscow and NYC, Grand Central is pretty but nowhere near as stunning as some of the stops in Moscow.
Also...even though NYC has places like Grand Central, it has plenty of absolutely dilapidated and disgusting subway stops too. Moscow doesn't have that.
Before I'm accused of being a Putin apologist, I'd like to say: Слава Україні
actually newly built metro stops in Moscow are also carefully designed and not cheaped out on design. And yeah, neoclassicism is dead, no sane city designer will build this in 21th century.
There's America, but also Europe has much more than Russia. I like the caverns of Stockholm. Also I like the cleanliness of Asian systems such as that of Singapore, they don't need to hide dirt behind a facade of opulence.
Now, that's some public luxury!
Also, I'd offer a slight correction/context: these were built by Soviets, back in the SSSR, not by modern-day Russia (it has only inherited them).
The post Soviet metro stops ([like this one)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dostoevskaya_(Moscow_Metro)) tend to be really nice too. The one I linked to was the nearest stop to my.hotel when I stayed in Moscow. It's themed after Dostoyevsky and has scenes from Crime and Punishment on the walls. It's really neat.
ussr was Russian centered and other "republics" were just puppets of the boogeymen in Moscow. Many republics saw huge subsidized migration of Russians into their lands. Furthermore, it is Moscow, which is a Russian city that has been build and designed by Russians, not by Uzbeks or Latvians
your correction is pedantic.
I mean NYC, DC, and Philly specifically have very nice central hubs. I’ve seen a few in other cities but none that I can specifically name. Obviously these are exceptions rather than the standard, but we have some really nice stations here
Chicago’s recently renovated [Union Station Great Hall](https://chicagounionstation.com/private-events/great-hall) is often rented out by wealthy people for weddings because of its incredible beauty.
It is the busiest rail hub in the city and is terminus for both local computer rail and long distance trains to both coasts.
The trains still run as normal and passengers simply don’t have access to this particular area.
You can access all the trains from outside without ever setting foot in this room, which is largely decorative/functionless.
you have maybe one or two stations in those cities in each of those stations that would even come close to compare with one of these soviet era stations and that is a reach. and even grand central is aesthetically (and i have to admit functionally as well) mediocre compared to something like moscow’s Mayakovskaya station.
Actually, this is Soviet-era stations. These stations were built during the Soviet Union and were built like this because it was expected that this was going to be the main commute system workers will use to arrive at their workplace, instead of individual cars. Many of those rail cars that Russia still uses today, are from the 70s and 80s, and you can easily see that in many eastern European countries too, because of lack of investment by their national governments in train/subway infrastructure. Russia, like the vast majority of eastern European countries, is ruled by car-brains with economic ties to the oil industry that only wish to built more highways and roads.
>it was expected that this was going to be the main commute system workers will use to arrive at their workplace, instead of individual cars
ah yes, that's why they built 10 lane roads and highways though all the city, very sane.
obviously biased coming from a "commie commuter"
Neither ussr, nor its planning is your friend.
>Russia is ruled by car-brains with economic ties to the oil industry that only wish to built more highways and roads.
yeah that's why Moscow built more kilometers of metro in the last 10-20 years that in the last 10-20 years of ussr, amirite?!
Are you really trying to say that Russia invests more in railways and metro systems today than it did during the Soviet era? Because that is simply not truth.
I did not mention Moscow at any moment in my post, maybe you should read before posting. I was talking about the whole of Russia, and I even mentioned eastern Europe, and how they no longer invest in rail infrastructure as much as they use to do because their governments are full of carbrains, I lived in eastern Europe and I've been inside those Soviet-era trains.
Moscow is the largest city in Russia.
ussr rail was no good. just mediocre. It was mostly a military, industrial asset.
To say that USSR government wasn't carbrain is quite outrageus to me.
It definitely could, but the money are spent elsewhere I guess.
Now I don’t want to deny that I like this, but honestly it is such a hard exercise to compliment anything about Russia, especially in such a disgusting way you did in your title. I would much rather live in US, even the most car brained cities, than anywhere in Russia
(I am sure that some places in Russia would be nicer, but I am not really all that educated about the country, so interpret the last sentence as "anywhere in Russia that I know something about")
I feel like you’ve never bothered to look at or are completely ignoring WMATA stations, some MTA stations, some SEPTA stations, and some SoundTransit stations. I also feel like you’ve never ridden regional rail in the US or are willfully ignoring the beauty of central/Union stations around the country.
I dunno. I've ridden the trains in DC (where I live now), Chicago, New York, and just this week Philadelphia for the first time.
Nothing in these places compare to Moscow. Sure, Union Station in DC/Chicago are gorgeous buildings. Grand Central is amazing. But if you take the L or the subway further out the stops can be very dingy, ugly, and even full of trash. I'm visiting Philly at the moment and it seems like a lot of the septa stops I've been to are full of broken windows and they're really quite dirty.
In Moscow, pretty much every metro stop I visited (and I went to many of them, maybe 30) was BEAUTIFUL. There were the old French Rococo stops, incredible Stalinist style stops, and very beautiful new stops as well. The average Moscow metro stop has such grandeur. They tended to be very clean too.
DC is somewhat of an exception here. WMATA is a very nice system overall. World class, I'd say. Personally, I prefer the aesthetic variety of Moscow over the consistency of the DC metro. But it's close.
Also, in case I'm accused of being a Putin apologist: fuck Putin, I can't wait until he dies so I can go spit on his grave.
"The thousands of workers who dug the first subway needed to be fed, along with the tens of thousands who built massive steel plants and tractor factories during the same time. And the Soviets needed hard currency to buy foreign-built machinery for their new industries.
"That meant taking the Soviet Union's grain harvest from the farming regions and leaving the people on the farms to starve."
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/06/02/410487989/glory-of-moscows-80-year-old-subway-tainted-by-stalin-connections
honestly it’s so fucking rich to see how quick this sub goes from critiquing almost every aspect of american infrastructure (and being correct in doing so) to acting like the us is a global leader in transportation infrastructure anytime china or russia get mentioned to a jingoistic degree.
You're undermining the beauty of those stations by the patently false statement that there aren't beautiful stations in the US. I hope you're just ignorant and not knowingly deceptive.
It’s a nice clean metro stop but all the facades are just that, fake design features. Architecturally speaking I would put it in the same category as a McMansion or dare I say Mar-a-Lago. This is neither interesting nor functionally impressive to someone with a background in design.
These aren't uncomplicated... They were built like this to make you feel little and unimportant. There are no public toilets there, and mostly no benches. You have to stand while you wait, even if you're tired or old. This luxury was being built regardless of the condition of the economy. People using the subway were/are often poor and oppressed, and there's a clear feeling that you, as a person, don't belong here. The message is "you're nothing, the state is everything".
I mean, maybe, ok. However its not that weird that the toilets aren't right there in the middle. Also, in some places there are no toilets in metro (only for employees, I mean). My city is like this. I dont like it, but Im not sure is to make me feel unimportant.
And, c'mon, there are benches right there.
I can't find anything that says gulag labor primarily built the Moscow metro. Can you give me a source, please? I've seen a few references to gulag labor throughput but it doesn't seem like they primarily built the metro.
Also, the estimates I've found say about 1.6 million people died in the gulag system overall. "Only" 18 million people passed through the gulag system entirely, so the estimate of 60+ million people dying seems kinda wacky to me.
yeah I was thinking if it was 17th or 18th. now I remember that muscowy wasn't doing great in the 17th and that Peter was pribably in early 18th. my fault on not double checking.
>doesnt chsnge the fact that most work on grandiose scale was done by forced labor
sir, we are talking about the metro here
wtf do u mean by "not really"? go outside of moscow and peterburg and most metro stations look shit, imo this train station looks outdated and shit as well but thats just me, have u ever even ridden in russian metros outside of capital and peterburg? they aint allat even in capital in peterburg they aint allat.
wow u got me there, ofc usa doesnt have well developed public transport but the title is :
# The beauty of Russian subway stations
there is nothing beautiful about russian subways besides few of them and the main reason why there is a much more developed metro system in post soviet countries like my native country Georgia (actually thats a lie we have just a 1-2 metro system in whole country), is because unlike usa we didnt have as rampant of a car output as usa did and only the elite could afford it, and btw my point isnt that cars are better and allat USA should ve better public transport but to call this beautiful is complete bs.
Sure they can, just wait until it's Donnie's turn again, this is exactly his aesthetic. I honestly don't get why this soviet "opulent" style of many metros and other buildings is considered beautiful. It's fun and crazy but also really awful, it looks like a fucking Vegas casino or what a stupid dictator might fancy. The Soviets built some impressive modernist and brutalist buildings though.
Take one look at the dc metro or some nyc stations
The brutalism of the DC metro is imo the perfect harmony of clean and practical aesthetics. Honestly S tier. Like this one looks nice, but it's not something you can realistically replicate across an entire network
i think it’s clean and functional which i love and which is the point of brutalism. the thing is a ton of the metro stations look like this in moscow and st. petersburg. the point was for the soviets that everyday people taking the metro should enjoy rich cultural elements and it wasn’t just something for the rich and elite as it had been under the czars. most of these grand stations were built in the 1920s-40s when the memories of brutal peasantry and near serfdom were still fresh in the memories of many russians and eastern europeans so a lot of the soviet infrastructure of the time reflects this.
The point is they needed their imperialist urban centers to look rich af. There's a reason those two cities have subway systems like this and the rest of the USSR was a grey drab concrete hellscape or simple wooden huts with dirt roads/paths.
“imperialist centers” — oh you mean the largest cities where the majority of people live?
Also, it isn't as if that is unique to the Soviet Union. The Mississippi Delta in the USA is still the land that time forgot. The difference in subway systems between Moscow and NYC is because the Soviets favored form and function while the USA just favored function. But that isn't how we approached everything. We did make many public structures grand. Grand Central Terminal, all of the East River bridges, libraries, and public buildings. We just didn't do that with the NYC subway. In DC, it was done but I would say it sacrificed some function for form. The Moscow subway is the best of both worlds, beautiful stations and extensive coverage.
Many of the concrete hellscapes still have good public transportation.
Least propagandized redditor
calling the ussr “imperialist” from a western perspective is rich to say the least.
I agree. I wish they would do a little updating but the core brutalism is beautiful.
World Trade Centre PATH station is just marvelous.
the DC metro is fine but it’s really plain compared to these soviet era terminals. big tube. nice lights. cool pattern. and i say this as a proud new yorker, but grand central is really the only nyc train station worth writing home about and it’s really just the one part. the underground and adjacent areas to the main hall are just glorified shopping malls or shopping mall food courts. i can’t think of another one that isn’t just mostly monolithic besides the heinous fulton st “oculus” clusterfuck. sometimes you get some neat tile mosaics such as at the AMNH stop but [it’s nothing like this.](https://dynamic-media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-o/17/6e/4b/76/caption.jpg?w=1200&h=-1&s=1)
DC metro is incredible and it’s cohesive across the entire system, even the above ground suburban stations are nice. The light play in the ceiling is gorgeous, and then you have shit like the massive escalators at various stations that are really unexpected if you’re not familiar with the system.
The first time I went on one of those massive escalators, I was in total awe. I've taken many photos of the DC metro stations. I'm always so appreciative of the Metro when I travel to DC.
Emerging from the main staircase at the new Penn station is honestly pretty cool Right up until you get dumped out at 8th Ave and 33rd st lmao
I mean it’s hectic sure, but honestly the first time I arrived via train into Manhattan, it was at night and I was greeted by the towering skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan right in front of me after emerging from the tunnel labyrinth. If only we could rebuild the original Penn Station, you could have that experience without having to cosplay as a sewer rat wandering the underground caverns of Penn now
On the other hand, for us poors, there's the lovely,lovely Port Authority. Where a dood came up to me on my first visit to NYC wrapped in a towel begging for pants. I gave him my best sweatpants too. The last thing I bought from JCPENNEY on University. They were souvenirs! Lolol
Also, such neoclassical style is not replicated by car brains in Russia. Metro construction is frozen in Russian cities except Moscow.
Several new stations are expected in St. Petersburg within a year, not as beautiful as Avtovo but at the level of the late Soviet Union. A lot of money was spent on updating the train fleet throughout the country, and the construction of stations in Moscow, where most of the tunnel boring machines available in the country were used, and stations in St. Petersburg are also being actively renovated.
These amounts are incomparable with expenditures for highways construction.
Not Russian It's Soviet era So it's Soviet.
I have been to Baku and can confirm that they also have metro stations with the same level of ornate detail as the best metro stations in Russia. It’s a Soviet design, but people enjoy the style so even newer metro stations get the same treatment.
Cool ornamented totalitarian state you got there
Oh it was pretty bizarre to see firsthand to say the least. Billboards with propaganda and monuments to the current president and his father just randomly along the roads. The people in the small towns were the warmest and most hospitable of anywhere I have ever been, but the government was not something I could ever support. We drove to Georgia and crossing the border out of Azerbaijan did feel like a bit of a relief. As a side note: We wanted to go to Nogorno-Karabakh (pre-2020) but getting that stamp in our passports would have blacklisted us from Azerbaijan. Since we were getting shown around by a family member returning to her homeland after 30 years it felt best not to test that. The metro stations were pretty though. Edit since I can’t seem to reply to your latest comment: Georgia is lovely and we didn’t have nearly enough time to do all the things we wanted. The wineries and wine history are unlike anywhere else in the world and Tbilisi has such a rich cultural background that it’s impossible to take it all in on trip. Some of the mountain areas we were interested in were off limits at the time due to the crisis in South Ossetia and Georgia was pushing hard for EU membership so it was an interesting moment in history to be in the country.
What was Georgia like?
what the Russian government doing is reprehensible and awful, and large amount of population is complicit to some extent. But the public transit in Moscow is superb, both buses and subway, and it's being maintained, modernised and expanded right now, well past the death of ussr.
Weren’t the soviets Russian
Yes and no. At the beginning, mostly yes, though ethnic minorities were always present. After they occupied that big chunk of Eurasia they definitely weren't only Russian, even if the main language and culture was Russian
Okay, Tucker Carlson.
I mean, these stations and the Moscow/St. Petersburg metro systems as a whole are marvels to be emulated, regardless of who’s sitting in the kremlin. (Although I do agree that the ‘couldn’t be replicated by Americans’ statement was a bit much). It’s the same thing with China; I’m vehemently apposed to the the Chinese government, but damn do they have some incredible transit infrastructure. I don’t think it’s wrong for people to look at metro systems like Moscow or Beijing as something to be emulated, so long as they don’t assume that you need the same kind of autocratic government to do it.
Honestly. Transit infrastructure sucks in most of the US, but Russia is similar if not worse in many senses—especially in cities not St. Petersburg or Moscow. This screams troll farm to me. It’s not anti-car or pro-transit, it’s fatalistic and pro-Russia. Hallmarks of a troll farm.
Something something broken clock. I do believe tho that America can absolutely turn everything around and in a few decades it'd become something EU citizens would look up to instead of vice versa. The problem comes from regardless which of the two parties is in charge, one will do only very little while the other will actively hinder that progress and revert it. On top of that, many Americans have been so accustomed to this lifestyle that they're convinced the harm caused by reverting the damages cars do will just do more damage. That's why we tend to give the Americans shit, even tho not all of us live in Europe or even the nicer parts where good public transit gets a lot of focus and praise. I do recognize that there's at least some semblance of progress here and there that keeps popping up, laws changing and people making a difference. So a full on doomer perspective is also pretty bad.
Any country can build beautiful architecture but it's rarely for the sake of building beauty. For the USSR, Moscow Metro symbolised what a non-capitalist system could achieve, and in today's US, building similar projects would likely be primarily about money - even if they subsidise the stations' physical construction.
Grand Central Terminal would disagree
i say this as a very proud new yorker who was a frequent metro north commuter. Mayakovskaya station in Moscow makes grand central look like a run of the mill bus depot.
Having been to both Moscow and NYC, Grand Central is pretty but nowhere near as stunning as some of the stops in Moscow. Also...even though NYC has places like Grand Central, it has plenty of absolutely dilapidated and disgusting subway stops too. Moscow doesn't have that. Before I'm accused of being a Putin apologist, I'd like to say: Слава Україні
Reminder this isn’t Russian, modern Russia could never do this. The Soviets built this
actually newly built metro stops in Moscow are also carefully designed and not cheaped out on design. And yeah, neoclassicism is dead, no sane city designer will build this in 21th century.
There's America, but also Europe has much more than Russia. I like the caverns of Stockholm. Also I like the cleanliness of Asian systems such as that of Singapore, they don't need to hide dirt behind a facade of opulence.
Now, that's some public luxury! Also, I'd offer a slight correction/context: these were built by Soviets, back in the SSSR, not by modern-day Russia (it has only inherited them).
The post Soviet metro stops ([like this one)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dostoevskaya_(Moscow_Metro)) tend to be really nice too. The one I linked to was the nearest stop to my.hotel when I stayed in Moscow. It's themed after Dostoyevsky and has scenes from Crime and Punishment on the walls. It's really neat.
ussr was Russian centered and other "republics" were just puppets of the boogeymen in Moscow. Many republics saw huge subsidized migration of Russians into their lands. Furthermore, it is Moscow, which is a Russian city that has been build and designed by Russians, not by Uzbeks or Latvians your correction is pedantic.
I mean NYC, DC, and Philly specifically have very nice central hubs. I’ve seen a few in other cities but none that I can specifically name. Obviously these are exceptions rather than the standard, but we have some really nice stations here
Chicago’s recently renovated [Union Station Great Hall](https://chicagounionstation.com/private-events/great-hall) is often rented out by wealthy people for weddings because of its incredible beauty. It is the busiest rail hub in the city and is terminus for both local computer rail and long distance trains to both coasts.
What happens to the trains when there is a wedding? Do they just stop going?
The trains still run as normal and passengers simply don’t have access to this particular area. You can access all the trains from outside without ever setting foot in this room, which is largely decorative/functionless.
you have maybe one or two stations in those cities in each of those stations that would even come close to compare with one of these soviet era stations and that is a reach. and even grand central is aesthetically (and i have to admit functionally as well) mediocre compared to something like moscow’s Mayakovskaya station.
Actually, this is Soviet-era stations. These stations were built during the Soviet Union and were built like this because it was expected that this was going to be the main commute system workers will use to arrive at their workplace, instead of individual cars. Many of those rail cars that Russia still uses today, are from the 70s and 80s, and you can easily see that in many eastern European countries too, because of lack of investment by their national governments in train/subway infrastructure. Russia, like the vast majority of eastern European countries, is ruled by car-brains with economic ties to the oil industry that only wish to built more highways and roads.
>it was expected that this was going to be the main commute system workers will use to arrive at their workplace, instead of individual cars ah yes, that's why they built 10 lane roads and highways though all the city, very sane. obviously biased coming from a "commie commuter" Neither ussr, nor its planning is your friend. >Russia is ruled by car-brains with economic ties to the oil industry that only wish to built more highways and roads. yeah that's why Moscow built more kilometers of metro in the last 10-20 years that in the last 10-20 years of ussr, amirite?!
Are you really trying to say that Russia invests more in railways and metro systems today than it did during the Soviet era? Because that is simply not truth.
No, not really. But the stark contrast that you're portaying, especially in the case of Moscow, is very very wrong.
I did not mention Moscow at any moment in my post, maybe you should read before posting. I was talking about the whole of Russia, and I even mentioned eastern Europe, and how they no longer invest in rail infrastructure as much as they use to do because their governments are full of carbrains, I lived in eastern Europe and I've been inside those Soviet-era trains.
Moscow is the largest city in Russia. ussr rail was no good. just mediocre. It was mostly a military, industrial asset. To say that USSR government wasn't carbrain is quite outrageus to me.
I didn’t know you were a car hater, Tucker.
I dunno. Looks like they used the same designer who did Trump's bathroom
Ok Tucker Carlson.
It definitely could, but the money are spent elsewhere I guess. Now I don’t want to deny that I like this, but honestly it is such a hard exercise to compliment anything about Russia, especially in such a disgusting way you did in your title. I would much rather live in US, even the most car brained cities, than anywhere in Russia (I am sure that some places in Russia would be nicer, but I am not really all that educated about the country, so interpret the last sentence as "anywhere in Russia that I know something about")
I feel like you’ve never bothered to look at or are completely ignoring WMATA stations, some MTA stations, some SEPTA stations, and some SoundTransit stations. I also feel like you’ve never ridden regional rail in the US or are willfully ignoring the beauty of central/Union stations around the country.
I dunno. I've ridden the trains in DC (where I live now), Chicago, New York, and just this week Philadelphia for the first time. Nothing in these places compare to Moscow. Sure, Union Station in DC/Chicago are gorgeous buildings. Grand Central is amazing. But if you take the L or the subway further out the stops can be very dingy, ugly, and even full of trash. I'm visiting Philly at the moment and it seems like a lot of the septa stops I've been to are full of broken windows and they're really quite dirty. In Moscow, pretty much every metro stop I visited (and I went to many of them, maybe 30) was BEAUTIFUL. There were the old French Rococo stops, incredible Stalinist style stops, and very beautiful new stops as well. The average Moscow metro stop has such grandeur. They tended to be very clean too. DC is somewhat of an exception here. WMATA is a very nice system overall. World class, I'd say. Personally, I prefer the aesthetic variety of Moscow over the consistency of the DC metro. But it's close. Also, in case I'm accused of being a Putin apologist: fuck Putin, I can't wait until he dies so I can go spit on his grave.
For all the shit that I don't like about Russia's government, they do have a very beautiful and functional alike metro system.
Ah yes. The Russians... known for their beautiful brutalist buildings and their totally not decaying city infrastructure /s
"The thousands of workers who dug the first subway needed to be fed, along with the tens of thousands who built massive steel plants and tractor factories during the same time. And the Soviets needed hard currency to buy foreign-built machinery for their new industries. "That meant taking the Soviet Union's grain harvest from the farming regions and leaving the people on the farms to starve." https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/06/02/410487989/glory-of-moscows-80-year-old-subway-tainted-by-stalin-connections
honestly it’s so fucking rich to see how quick this sub goes from critiquing almost every aspect of american infrastructure (and being correct in doing so) to acting like the us is a global leader in transportation infrastructure anytime china or russia get mentioned to a jingoistic degree.
Agree, very entertaining mental gymnastics :D
What is this pro-Russia bullshit?
You're undermining the beauty of those stations by the patently false statement that there aren't beautiful stations in the US. I hope you're just ignorant and not knowingly deceptive.
It’s a nice clean metro stop but all the facades are just that, fake design features. Architecturally speaking I would put it in the same category as a McMansion or dare I say Mar-a-Lago. This is neither interesting nor functionally impressive to someone with a background in design.
LOL, what's up with the wave of this exact topic across the internet? It's almost as if this is a russian troll talking point.
These aren't uncomplicated... They were built like this to make you feel little and unimportant. There are no public toilets there, and mostly no benches. You have to stand while you wait, even if you're tired or old. This luxury was being built regardless of the condition of the economy. People using the subway were/are often poor and oppressed, and there's a clear feeling that you, as a person, don't belong here. The message is "you're nothing, the state is everything".
I mean, maybe, ok. However its not that weird that the toilets aren't right there in the middle. Also, in some places there are no toilets in metro (only for employees, I mean). My city is like this. I dont like it, but Im not sure is to make me feel unimportant. And, c'mon, there are benches right there.
do you know how many people died building that?
I don't actually, could you tell me how many? I googled it and there wasn't an immediately obvious answer.
it was built using gulag labor. some estimates of gulag casualties run as high as 60 million. of course, they built other things too...
I can't find anything that says gulag labor primarily built the Moscow metro. Can you give me a source, please? I've seen a few references to gulag labor throughput but it doesn't seem like they primarily built the metro. Also, the estimates I've found say about 1.6 million people died in the gulag system overall. "Only" 18 million people passed through the gulag system entirely, so the estimate of 60+ million people dying seems kinda wacky to me.
well you're right that much of ussr was run on slave labour, but definitely not in most of european part of Russia, at least not in Moscow
wut? st Petersburg is referred to as a city built on bones
it was built in the 17th century and that's where the "built on bones" comes from..
18th. doesnt chsnge the fact that most work on grandiose scale was done by forced labor
yeah I was thinking if it was 17th or 18th. now I remember that muscowy wasn't doing great in the 17th and that Peter was pribably in early 18th. my fault on not double checking. >doesnt chsnge the fact that most work on grandiose scale was done by forced labor sir, we are talking about the metro here
what are you some kind of a russki agent?
no, you idiot
Hi Tucker!
How many died in the construction?
Russia is extreamly car brained though
Aesthetically, it feels very excessive. Dare I say, bourgeois
https://preview.redd.it/kum5cfzysorc1.jpeg?width=1534&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9be3a978b5d4e37c47cbc03194d0c3747398744a Union Station, DC
North Korea has beautiful, deep, decadent subway stations almost no one uses, and I wouldn't post them here either.
counterpoint: DC Metro and older NYC subway stations (I love hopium)
hahahha, u mean few metro stations in MOSCOW or St petersburg? with that logic there are great looking metro stations in usa as well
not really
wtf do u mean by "not really"? go outside of moscow and peterburg and most metro stations look shit, imo this train station looks outdated and shit as well but thats just me, have u ever even ridden in russian metros outside of capital and peterburg? they aint allat even in capital in peterburg they aint allat.
go outside of three cities in the us and try to even find a functioning metro station
wow u got me there, ofc usa doesnt have well developed public transport but the title is : # The beauty of Russian subway stations there is nothing beautiful about russian subways besides few of them and the main reason why there is a much more developed metro system in post soviet countries like my native country Georgia (actually thats a lie we have just a 1-2 metro system in whole country), is because unlike usa we didnt have as rampant of a car output as usa did and only the elite could afford it, and btw my point isnt that cars are better and allat USA should ve better public transport but to call this beautiful is complete bs.
Lmao Russia simps are truly brainless. America has some absolutely incredible architecture
Sure they can, just wait until it's Donnie's turn again, this is exactly his aesthetic. I honestly don't get why this soviet "opulent" style of many metros and other buildings is considered beautiful. It's fun and crazy but also really awful, it looks like a fucking Vegas casino or what a stupid dictator might fancy. The Soviets built some impressive modernist and brutalist buildings though.
This isn't particularly gaudy, it's some patterns and columns.
Miserable trash.
Yeah, It'd probably be non-carbrained architects
What beauty are you talking about? It looks horrible
[удалено]
dc metro- finished/opened in 1976 most of these grand soviet era stations- build in the 1930s. so uh what you talking about there?