The Saint Petersburg Metro (Russian: Петербургский метрополитен, romanised: Peterburgskiy metropoliten) is a rapid transit system in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Construction began in early 1941 and the system opened on 15 November 1955 after delays due to World War II and the Siege of Leningrad, during which the constructed stations were used as bomb shelters.
Formerly known as the Order of Lenin Leningrad Metro named after V. I. Lenin (Ленинградский Ордена Ленина Метрополитен имени В. И. Ленина), the system includes many examples of Stalinist architecture, including exquisite decorations and artwork. Due to the city's unique geology, including soft topsoil and underground rivers and high-pressure aquifers, as well as its possible use as bomb shelters, it is also one of the deepest metro systems in the world and the deepest by the average depth of all the stations. The deepest station, Admiralteyskaya, is 86 metres (282 ft) below ground.
The network consists of 6 lines with a total length of 131 kilometres (81 mi). It has 75 stations including 8 transfer points. It is one of the busiest metro systems in Europe, with annual ridership of 686 million passengers (almost 2 million/day).
Fares per trip are ₽65 if paid via Podorozhnik card or ₽95 if paid by bank card or token. Discounts are given if transferring from another form of public transport.
In 1820, Torgovanov, a resident of the city, submitted a plan to Tsar Alexander I — involving the digging of a tunnel from the centre of the city to Vasilyevsky Island. The Russian ruler rejected the project and ordered the inventor to sign a pledge "not to engage in hare-brained schemes in the future, but to exercise his efforts in matters appropriate to his estate."
Other, more developed projects subsequently emerged, but they, too, received no recognition.
Many people said that the excavation works would "violate the amenities and respectability of the city"; the landlords affirmed that underground traffic would undermine the foundations of the buildings; the merchants feared that "the open excavations would interfere with normal trade"; and the clergy insisted that "the underground passages running near church buildings would detract from their dignity." Therefore, the project was not advanced.
By the end of the 19th century, certain interested parties began discussing the possibility of opening the Russian Empire's first metropolitan railway system. The press praised the initial plans, while engineers privately worried about the serious lack of experience in the sort of projects required to build a metro; at the time, Saint Petersburg did not even have electrified tramways. However, due to the wish of the municipal authorities of the time to take ownership of the metro after its eventual entry into service, none of the aforementioned projects ever came to fruition.
In 1901, engineer Vladimir Pechkovsky presented a project to build an elevated station in the middle of Nevsky Prospect, opposite the Kazan Cathedral, and to link it, via elevated and underground sections of track (above the Ekaterinsky and Obvodny canals and beneath the Zabalkansky prospect) with the Baltiysky and Varshavsky Rail Terminals. In the same year, Reshevsky, also an engineer, working at the behest of the Emperor's minister for transport, came up with two possible projects, which aimed primarily to unite all of Saint Petersburg's main railway stations with one urban interchange. An interesting development, the work upon which had been carried out for many years by railway engineer P.I. Balinsky (one of the first Russian metro engineers) involved plans to build a dedicated network of six urban lines, two of which would be radial lines with a total length of 172 kilometres (107 mi). The construction work (including the filling of low-lying areas of the city in order to avoid flooding, construction of 11 major bridges, embankments and viaducts at a height of 5–10 metres (16–33 ft), and the actual laying of track etc.) was projected to cost around 190 million rubles. However, in 1903 Emperor Nicholas II rejected the scheme before any work ever started.
Almost all pre-revolutionary designs featured the concept of an elevated metro system, similar to the Paris Metro or Vienna Stadtbahn. However, as it was later discovered through the experience of operating uncovered ground-level metro sections in St. Petersburg (which were later closed due to the same reason), such projects had many maintenance issues. Russian engineers had neither sufficient equipment nor technical skills at the time to build deep-lying tunnels through the challenging ground beneath St. Petersburg. In 1918, Moscow became the country's capital after the October Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) followed; for more than a decade plans to build a metro in Petrograd languished.
1938-1945: First phase construction and World War II
In 1938, the question of building a metro for St Petersburg (by then renamed to Leningrad), resurfaced at the initiative of Alexei Kosygin, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Soviets of Working People's Deputies. Ivan Zubkov, an engineer who for his work was later to become a Hero of Socialist Labour, was appointed the first director for the metro construction. The project was designed by the Moscow institute 'Metrogiprotrans', but on 21 January 1941 'Construction Directorate № 5 of the People's Commissariat' was founded as a body to specifically oversee the design and construction of the Leningrad Metro. By April 1941, 34 shafts for the initial phase of construction had been finished.
During World War II, construction work was halted due to severe lack of funding, manpower and equipment. At this time, many of the metro construction workers were employed in the construction and repair of railheads during the Siege of Leningrad. Zubkov died in 1944.
1946-1955: Construction completion and opening
In 1946, under the leadership of M A Samodurov, Lenmetroproyekt was created to finish the construction of the first phase of the metro. A new version of the metro project, devised by specialists, identified two solutions to construction problems. Firstly, stations were to be built at a level slightly raised above that of normal track so as to prevent drainage directly into them, whilst the average tunnel width was reduced from the 6 metres (19 ft 8 in) standard of the Moscow Metro to 5.5 metres (18 ft 1 in).
On 3 September 1947, construction began again in the Leningrad subway, and in December 1954, the Council of Ministers of the USSR ordered the establishment of the state transport organisation Leningradsky Metropoliten, to be headed by Ivan Novikov. The organisation set up its offices in the building directly above Tekhnologichesky Institut station. On 7 October 1955, the electricity was turned on in the metro, and on 5 November 1955, the act by which the first stage of the metro was put into operation, was signed.
The grand opening was held on 15 November 1955, with seven stations on Line 1. The eighth station, Pushkinskaya opened a few months later. These stations connected the Moscow Rail Terminal in the city centre with the Kirovsky industrial zone in the southwest. In 1978, the line was extended past the city limits into the Leningrad Oblast. participants of the construction of the metro first stage received a total of 1,023 governmental awards.
1958-1991: Construction of additional lines