[HN Gopher] Why is the Moscow Metro so grandiose compared to oth...
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Why is the Moscow Metro so grandiose compared to other Soviet
architecture
Author : xenocratus
Score : 148 points
Date : 2021-05-24 10:56 UTC (12 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.reddit.com)
| aws10 wrote:
| Stalinkas (apartment blocks built during Stalin's dictatorship)
| also look neo-classicist.
|
| Building grandiose government buildings also happens in the West.
| Right now in Germany government buildings are doing fine whereas
| private buildings crumble.
| geokon wrote:
| It's a bit surprising that this omits the fact that the Moscow
| Metro is a nuclear bomb shelter. There are huge blast doors
| everywhere and at many stations it's significantly deeper than
| Paris of New York. It's also got some of the longest escalators
| I've ever used in my life. Naturally since you need several
| minute to descend into the depths you'd want wider spaces and
| plazas. I can't imagine the claustrophobia if they'd made it to a
| western scale.. I also imagine there are huge challenges with
| ventilation and whatnot...
|
| To the other points raise, I never quite understood the multi-
| decade Moscow housing shortages. The USSR (and now Russia) had
| internal travel passports, and at least back then you couldn't
| just pick up your bags and move to a different city. Why were
| more people than houses allowed to immigrate to Moscow? Maybe
| someone has some historical insight into this?
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| I wonder if there is a website somewhere listing ordinary sites
| that actually double as nuclear shelters. For instance, I
| remember walking through the underground parking underneath
| Helsinki's Kamppi shopping center, and noticing that there were
| huge blast doors, which were kept out of the way and made to
| seem unobtrusive, but could clearly be closed in some
| emergency.
| def_true_false wrote:
| Answered elsewhere in the thread:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/lz3rj1/why_d...
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| The 1930s time period that this discusses would have been very
| oddly early to begin construction of deep shelters, globally. I
| don't know a lot about Soviet Cold War civil defense history
| but Wikipedia at least confirms that dual-use construction as
| bomb shelters occurred during system expansions in the early
| 1950s, much later (and, most importantly, after the
| introduction of nuclear weapons). Deep shelters were not common
| prior to the introduction of nuclear weapons as there were
| cheaper and more practical defenses against conventional
| bombing, particularly before radionavigation (appx. early
| '40s).
|
| This puts the Moscow Metro bomb shelter efforts solidly a
| decade later than London's conversion of Tube stations into
| dual-use bomb shelters, which started shortly pre-nuclear as a
| response to the unique challenges of defending London from the
| Blitz (London was highly dense and radionavigation was coming
| into use, largely defeating blackouts as a damage control
| measure). The United States made various runs at similar
| projects from the '50s to the '80s but they never got
| particularly far (which is a statement that goes generally for
| US civil defense efforts), probably in large part because the
| US never actually faced bombing like Great Britain had.
| toyg wrote:
| Remember Russia was effectively experiencing its industrial
| revolution in one massive big-boom over barely 40 years.
| England experienced it over more than a century and still
| cities like Manchester ended up hugely overcrowded, with people
| living in squalor.
|
| The English experience was very well-understood by socialists
| and communists (Marx and Engels themself had kickstarted their
| efforts in Manchester, after witnessing - and arguably
| exploiting, given their ownership of factories - the terrible
| conditions of the industrial working classes). It makes sense
| that proper housing would have been at the forefront of the
| industrialization efforts in the USSR, to avoid ending up in
| those same conditions; but industrialization itself was being
| pushed at breakneck speed, forever negating any progress
| achieved on the housing side. Hence a perennial state of "we
| should do something about housing!!"...
| Arech wrote:
| > It's a bit surprising that this omits the fact that the
| Moscow Metro is a nuclear bomb shelter.
|
| That applies to the oldest stations in the city's center. Many
| stations build even in 1980s are not so deep & suitable for the
| task, though they may have some special means integrated too.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| > Why were more people than houses allowed to immigrate to
| Moscow? Maybe someone has some historical insight into this?
|
| Labour demand. Moscow used to have lots and lots of factories
| and these factories needed workers. Increasing industrial
| capacity was seen as more important than providing every
| worker's family with their own flat _right now_ , so stopgap
| measures like communal flats, dorm-style flats, hotel-style
| flats were used. Some are occupied to this day by people
| waiting for their proper flat since 1972.
| emteycz wrote:
| These talks about the beauty of brutalism are interesting stuff,
| but that's not how I remember it.
|
| I remember communism - it is notorious for it - to be incredibly
| poor at allocation of resources, unquestionable bureaucrats that
| didn't need to explain anything, and mind-numbingly total
| disrespect of individual people.
|
| It's the same in Prague - grandiose metro was built right under
| destroyed-by-neglect cultural heritage and starving people who
| were forced to steal bricks to build their houses.
| vidarh wrote:
| I don't see where this talks about the "beauty of brutalism"?
|
| Brutalism was largely rejected in the Soviet Union (Stalin
| offended Le Corbusier massively by rejecting his brutalist plan
| for Moscow, for example) until Khrushchev saw cheap and crappy
| construction as a viable solution to the housing crisis that
| was intended to be _temporary_ (e.g. most of the housing was
| planned for a 20 year lifetime - of course it didn 't play out
| that way). There was no illusion at that point at least that it
| would be beautiful.
|
| Stalins focus on big ornate statement-buildings over solving
| housing was certainly an incredibly poor allocation of
| resources.
| emteycz wrote:
| That was sarcasm. My bad, I know it doesn't go well over the
| internet.
|
| There actually was artistic brutalism though - some
| architects here in Czechia (mostly Prague) tried to do their
| best with what was avaiblable. Some of these buildings are
| (post-significant rework) even nice. Some. And these were
| built way past Stalin - 70's and 80'.
|
| My point was that the metro was _the_ precious project of the
| bureaucrats.
| halsom wrote:
| You remember communism directly? Or you remember communism's
| propagandized reputation in the west?
| emteycz wrote:
| I am not in the west. I visited the west only few times. I am
| on the westernmost border of the former Iron Curtain.
| jtifbtosmrbd wrote:
| People had _houses_?! Where do I sign up?
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| For pictures, see
| https://www.google.com/search?q=moscow+metro&tbm=isch
|
| Anyone I spoke with who used Moscow metro, compared to New York
| and London, people say Moscow always wins hands down. Huge
| stations, wi-fi on trains and fresh breeze - not 30degC on
| central line in London during summer.
| aasasd wrote:
| One downside of Moscow and SPb metro that perennially bothers
| me is how loud it is in the trains. In Helsinki or Stockholm
| metro (iirc) you can easily talk to someone at nearly normal
| indoor volume.
|
| Notably, the noise almost disappears if the track leaves the
| tunnels for open air--so I have to wonder what's special about
| tunnels in those foreign systems.
| incanus77 wrote:
| Less about appearance and more about function, I went to Moscow
| as an American in 2013. The thing that really blew me away was
| the fact that trains came pretty much on the minute, so there was
| no schedule. You just wait a little bit and a train comes by.
|
| The other really cool thing was the Yandex app for routing on the
| system, which a) worked completely offline, and b) would show you
| which car of a train to get on and off (and at which doors) to
| make the most efficient transfer between trains at stations.
| Simply stunning.
| mynegation wrote:
| Soviet architecture developed in periods, like in other
| countries, and there definitely was a return to simplicity in
| 60s-80s. It is strange that author cites main building of Moscow
| State University as an example of "brutalist" architecture. It
| may seem massive and intimidating but it is not what brutalist
| architecture means.
|
| I lived in that building for several years and it is ornate and
| intricate example of Stalinist architecture, very much in line
| with subway stations built in the same period.
|
| Subway stations built in different periods used the prevailing
| architectural style of the time. It is just that not too many
| tourist see them as they tend to be well outside Moscow centre.
| vidarh wrote:
| > It is strange that author cites main building of Moscow State
| University as an example of "brutalist" architecture. It may
| seem massive and intimidating but it is not what brutalist
| architecture means.
|
| What do you mean? They don't. They cite it as an example of
| "Stalinist Classicism":
|
| > In fact, Stalin is most associated with "Stalinist
| Classicism", which is very ornate, so it wasn't just restricted
| to the Metro. Example: MGU, Moscow State University.
| ch_sm wrote:
| Where does the author name Moscow State Uni as an example of
| brutalism? I can only find a paragraph where they associate it
| with Stalinist Classicism, which seems apt:
|
| > But the Metro is not the only piece of architecture that
| rejects simplicity or blandness in Moscow from Stalin's
| lifetime. In fact, Stalin is most associated with "Stalinist
| Classicism", which is very ornate, so it wasn't just restricted
| to the Metro. Example: MGU, Moscow State University..
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Agreed. It's socrealism, prevalent under Stalin. There are
| similar examples of socrealist, stalinist architecture from my
| city:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Culture_and_Science
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plac_Konstytucji
| Akcium wrote:
| As a Russian I'm glad to hear this :)
|
| What's funny is that we usually do not notice its beauty because
| we got used to it.
|
| And I don't travel a lot so I cannot compare.
|
| BUT
|
| In the past years we indeed got wi-fi, air conditioning and
| stuff. Some of trains are colored in thematic things, like:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%...
|
| Check it out, they look really great!
| Akcium wrote:
| But we also have problems, of course: big crowds, random
| rogues, some of trains are dirty and smelly etc
| pavlov wrote:
| [New Yorker here doing the "Homer recedes into bush" meme]
| toyg wrote:
| I can tell you by experience that those problems are exactly
| the same in London, Paris, and New York, at the very least.
| Even in Japan, that utopic land of heavenly rail deployment,
| you get squeezed to an inch of your life at peak times (but
| at least the guy shoving you in, will wear impeccably-clean
| white gloves...)
| xenocratus wrote:
| That's really cool! Looking forward to seeing those stations
| and trains one day. Your link also prompted me to check the St.
| Petersburg metro stations:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=sankt+petersburg+metro&tbm=i...
|
| Equally pleasing! :)
| kfprt wrote:
| (It was built by slave labor!)
| cousin_it wrote:
| This is a rare example of English-language text that reflects
| Russian reality accurately. Cheers to whoever wrote it.
|
| As a child I loved descending into the metro. Meeting up with
| friends at Kropotkinskaya or Mayakovskaya, waiting for them to
| show up and just taking in the beauty. It was like an oasis. Then
| I went to study at the MSU, built in the same period and style,
| and loved it too.
| toyg wrote:
| This subthread is particularly nice as well:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/lz3rj1/why_d...
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| If you wouldn't mind my asking, what was Soviet life like for
| you?
| dominotw wrote:
| I really like this youtube channel by the guy who lived in
| soviet union. Talks about different aspects of soviet life
|
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClXTAMdHwvWdmFyOlQmEtpQ
|
| It is so good.
| cousin_it wrote:
| I mostly grew up in post-Soviet times.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Why is the Moscow Metro so grandiose compared to other Soviet
| architecture (reddit.com)
|
| Stalin's ego, turned into an architectural style. That's why.
|
| No need to spend 3 screens of writing on this.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Stalin's ego, turned into an architectural style. That's
| why. No need to spend 3 screens of writing on this."_
|
| Are you interested in getting a two-word answer or in learning
| about the history of the Soviet Union, the Metro, its view of
| socialism, ideals, etc?
|
| A brief dismissive answer like your teaches virtually nothing,
| and the reader does not come away from it any more informed
| than before. It also does a disservice to HN by discouraging
| intellectual curiosity. Not to mention that it's against HN
| guidelines[1], which say:
|
| _" Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."_
|
| [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| baybal2 wrote:
| The "monumental" works of Stalin era are monuments of sheer
| cruelty.
|
| When you go to Moscow metro, think think how many people had
| to die building it, repressed while building it, robbed while
| building it, starved while building it for you to see that
| beauty.
|
| Had I had a way, I would've ordered all and every piece of
| Stalinist work to be scraped off, and buried.
|
| You don't see foreigners walking ogling at Svastikas in
| Berlin metro. It all was meticulously demolished, bulldozed,
| scrubbed, and buried.
| Twixes wrote:
| Well, Autobahnen weren't demolished after Hitler was gone,
| were they? It's absurd to destroy useful and valuable works
| just to spite a dead dictator. Swastikas obviously don't
| amount to that, but whole astounding subway stations
| definitely do.
| darksaints wrote:
| As a side note, the /r/AskHistorians subreddit is absolutely
| fascinating, both from a subject-matter perspective, but also
| from the perspective of an exploration of the extreme ends of
| moderation policy. Specifically, the moderators have a zero
| tolerance policy towards unresearched and uncited answers. If you
| give an answer that is poorly cited, your comment gets deleted.
|
| The practical result is mainly seen in two ways. The first is
| when extremely interesting questions end up with no answers (the
| running joke is entire comment chains of [deleted]s). But the
| second is that when a question does receive an answer, it is
| usually brilliantly and thoroughly answered, with assumed
| followup questions answered as well. And those posts end up
| getting linked to by other social media platforms, paraphrased
| and summarized on websites like Atlasobscura, and plagiarized by
| clickbaiters.
| jvanvleet wrote:
| Years ago I made a single reply to askhistorians that survived
| and got a handful of upvotes. Nothing special and yet the one
| reply I have any pride in.
| mrec wrote:
| Yes, I have a few of those too. I think of it as Extreme
| Redditing :)
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| r/AskHistorians is a magical exception where mods are allowed
| to be very heavy-handed. On other special-interest subreddits,
| discussion quality has become very low since 5 years ago or so.
| The redesign hid the sidebar from users, so people don't see
| the FAQ there and just post the same questions over and over
| again. Knowledgeable regulars don't want to keep answering the
| same questions, so they leave. So, it is more likely that
| unknowledgable people will post crap replies.*
|
| But mods are afraid to be strict and delete bad-quality posts
| and replies, because apparently there is a way for ordinary
| redditors to complain to Reddit, who can then assign the sub to
| other mods who promise to be tolerant. Corporate Reddit _wants_
| people asking the same things again and again, and posting
| replies regardless of quality, because that means _engagement_.
|
| * (A good example of this is any post on a mainstream travel
| reddit asking about travel to Iran. Many tourists go to Iran -
| nationalities other than the US and UK can get visas, and they
| overwhelmingly enjoy their time there. For 30 years it has been
| a common rite of passage for Eastern European backpackers,
| their first trip outside the Europe-Turkey-Caucasus region. On
| dedicated travel forum websites, people know this. But Reddit
| threads quickly amass replies from Americans like "Dude, you're
| going to get beheaded.")
| sorokod wrote:
| I got put off /r/AskHistorians after my question was removed
| due to violation of "no self post" rule ( whatever that is).
| The question was "Who owned the bank of England before it was
| nationalised in 1946".
| mrec wrote:
| > _If you give an answer that is poorly cited, your comment
| gets deleted._
|
| That's not quite true. Sources are strongly encouraged but not
| required. _However_ , if you're asked for sources and don't
| provide them then yes, you will probably get deleted. [1]
|
| In practice, it's usually pretty obvious which replies aren't
| going to be able to back themselves up, and they almost always
| fail the "in-depth" test too making it a moot point.
|
| [1]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_sourc...
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I kind of wish HN would try to up its game in terms of
| moderation, because the signal to noise ratio here could be
| better.
|
| It doesn't have to go to the extreme of AskHistorians, because
| there just aren't enough experts on all the various topics that
| get discussed here to mandate scholarly monographs in replies,
| but there's still a lot of room for improvement.
| refurb wrote:
| Yup. If you want to see a great resource of interesting
| historical FAQs, look at the r/askhistorian archives. It's a
| very impressive collection of answers that are remarkably well
| done.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| The first thing that shocked me about it was how deep it is. You
| go down and down, on very steep stairs. Then you go even more
| down, it's very different from subways in most parts of Europe, I
| almost feel like descending to a coal mine, even the air seemed
| very different.
| dekoruotas wrote:
| Some Soviet bus stops are also unusually grandiose: http://fuel-
| design.com/publishing/soviet-bus-stops/
| sdwr wrote:
| The one on the front cover is lovely.
| datameta wrote:
| This book is quite the architectural and anthropological
| journey. The bus stops reflect local climate and culture.
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