St. Peterburg’s marvelous metro

Yesterday I told you why St. Petersburg should definitely be on your bucket list. Today I wanna zoom in on one of the aspects I found extremely fascinating: the city’s metro system.

If you would ask me what I find interesting in a city, I would not mention shopping or cool coffee spots for instance. Because I simply don’t care that much about shopping or coffee. What I do care about are these three aspects of a city: churches, graveyards and subways. You understand now why Paris is still one of my all time favorites?

Saint Petersburg performs quite well on my scorecard as well. You’ve seen a few of the many, many churches in my previous blogpost. Admittedly I haven’t seen a graveyard in Russia’s cultural capital, but I’m sure they’re there somewhere and they’re probably gorgeous. But what I did notice was the beauty of the metro stations. First a bit of info: the metro in St. Petersburg has been open since November 15, 1955. Formerly known as the Ленинградский Ордена Ленина Метрополитен имени В.И. Ленина, the system exhibits many typical Soviet designs and features exquisite decorations and artwork making it one of the most attractive and elegant metros in the world.

Due to the city’s unique geology, the Saint Petersburg Metro is one of the deepest metro systems in the world and the deepest by the average depth of all the stations. The system’s deepest station, Admiralteyskaya, is 86 metres below ground. Serving 2.15 million passengers daily, it is also the 16th busiest metro system in the world. Especially line 1 (also known as the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line) is impressive. The original stations are elaborately decorated, especially Avtovo and Narvskaya. The line cuts Saint Petersburg centre on a northeast-southwest axis. In the south its alignment follows the shore of the Gulf of Finland. In the north it extends outside the city limits into the Leningrad oblast.

Practical info: Brussels Airlines operates direct flights to St. Petersburg three times a week (Mon, Wed, Fri), until the end of October. Prices (round trip) start at 119€.