From underground to open-air
St. Petersburg, unlike other megapolises, doesn’t have any open-air metro stations, but this was not always the case. In 1966-1977, the red line (M1) stopped at Dachnoye – a temporary metro station with both underground and aboveground sections. It was built to ease the passenger traffic and could only serve five-car trains, which were common at that time. Over time, it became clear that open-type metro stations couldn’t work well in the local climate and require enclosing structures, as Devyatkino (M1) and Parnas (M2) now have. The station was closed as intended, but it was immortalized in several USSR movies, including Color of White Snow (1970), in which it plays a key role in the story.
Ghost stations
Although the local metro has its fair share of passed-down mythology (take, for example, a ghost train arriving at M1 after midnight), ghost stations have nothing to do with ghosts but much – with disused or never-opened stations. And there are quite a few of them now in St. Petersburg. These include the currently-under-construction Teatralnaya (M4), the closed Dachnoye (M1), and the 9th January Garden (M1), which never came around due to the outbreak of World War II – and these are just a few examples. Thus, the Pushkinskaya metro station, also on M1, was once a ghost station, too; though the monument inside it reads 1955 (also the year of the metro’s opening), the station wasn’t fully operating until a year later and was passed by without stopping.
Stolen horse
The metro stations in St. Petersburg are undoubtedly pieces of art; yet, a few hide secrets that can only be spotted if you have a keen eye. For instance, the decorative panel at Ploshchad Alexandra Nevskogo seems a usual piece featuring horsemen and their horses until you do the counting; it was even dubbed “5 men and 4 horses” by locals. The explanations for this vary, from the enigmatic meaning of loss to simple mistakes made by the artists. Nevertheless, it was decided to leave it as-is.
Hidden Stalin
The Narvskaya station (M1) stuns with its marble Soviet-themed reliefs and ornaments, but did you know that there used to be a grand-scale panel of Joseph Stalin in the depth of the station? With a different leader at helm, the panel was ordered to be covered by a marble trim wall in the 1960s. Whether the original is still hidden underneath remains a mystery to the present day. The panel was also one of the reasons why, supposedly, one of the station's proposed names was Stalinskaya.
Trains you rarely see
Even if you’re an avid commuter, odds are you’re more used to seeing the typical blue-colored or modern-looking trains, but there are other, more unusual trains to find underground – and those are technical trains. They are different in color, number of cars, and even more so in purpose. For example, yellow-and-red trains are used for infrastructure diagnostics; some work during the day and some – exclusively at night. The latter, also known as “батарейки” (“batteries”), run on battery power instead of electricity.
Nostalgia “rides,” metro art, and even local slang – find more metro-related stories under this tag.
