Mayakovskaya metro station


I like to walk underground and look closely at the details. Metro stations of Moscow are as beautiful and gorgeous as they were several decades ago. The Metro remains the quickest and the most comfortable kind of public transport in the capital.

From Wikipedia:

Considered to be one of the most beautiful in the system, Mayakovskaya is a fine example of pre-World War II Stalinist Architecture and one of the most famous Metro stations in the world. The name as well as the design is a reference to Futurism and its prominent Russian exponent Vladimir Mayakovsky.

To complement the triumph in engineering, Alexey Dushkin's Art Deco decoration design amazed the world. Based on a Soviet future as envisioned by the poet Mayakovsky, the station features graceful columns faced with stainless steel and pink rhodonite, white Ufaley and grey Diorite marble walls, a brilliant flooring pattern of white and pink marble, and 35 niches, one for each vault. Surrounded by filament lights there are a total of 34 ceiling mosaics by Alexander Deyneka with the theme "24-Hour Soviet Sky." A passenger can look up and see the bright Soviet future right above him.

In 2005 a new second north exit was built, along with a new vestibule in a unique style. Passengers leaving the station first descend on a short escalator ride into an underground vestibule, and then ascend the long way to the surface. The new exit also allows access to the 25th mosaic, which was previously hidden behind the service section. Other mosaic works were designed from scratch, accompanied by ample use of marble and stainless steel sculpturing. The bust of the poet was moved to the new surface vestibule, whose ceiling was also decorated with a mosaic composition from Mayakovsky's poem "Moscow Sky".

Author of the article and photos: ptychnik