MOSCOW, May 15 (RIA Novosti's Yelena Korobeynikova) - Moscow metro began its operation 70 years ago.
According to Moscow metro chief Dmitry Gayev, one of the first stations, Sokolniki, has been selected as a celebration platform where people will see a performance dedicated to the early days of the metro, with 1930s-style outfits and metro carriages.
The Moscow metro has issued special tickets for this day and ordered a small batch of jubilee coins with the building of one of the first metro stations on the reverse.
In the 1930s, more than 80,000 workers were involved in the construction of the Moscow metro. The first lines had only 13 stations with 11 km of railways. The trains consisted of four carriages and went with a gap of five minutes. At first, old Muscovites remember, if not to travel, they went underneath to admire the magnificent style of metro stations designed by prominent Soviet artists and architects.
During the WWII, many new stations were built; some, including the downtown Mayakovskaya, were converted into bomb shelters.
Today's Moscow metro includes 170 stations and carries about 8.5 million passengers each working day and up to 4 million passengers on weekends. During rush hours, the gap between trains on central stations can be as little as eight seconds, which Dmitry Gayev has described as a world record.
