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Travelling on the Moscow Metro

Traveling on the metro here, is an interesting but not an altogether pleasant experience. You enter the metro walking past many people drinking beer from the can, make your way past people selling, I don't know what, you walk past dogs with a bucket in their teeth with a sign stuck on the bucket saying "feed me". You then blindly swipe your ticket on the barrier machine to get in, although you don't know how much credit you have left and make your way to the vast escalators.

Its kind of surreal on the escalator. They are very steep and the metro seems to swallow you up on a factory conveyor belt into the pit of hell. You can hear the dull thudding sound of the escalator machinery clanking away and have only dim lighting on your way down, few people smile or speak. Once down, you pass a man or woman that sits in a glass booth at the bottom of the escalator, who's daily job is to sit there staring up at the endless passengers on the escalator. Then you go to the platform and board your train.

The trains on the Moscow underground, are like those in the UK, in that they were new circa Protected content have not had much done to them since then, apart from some new plastic seat coverings. If you are lucky enough to find a seat, you will have to endure the body smells of others such as bad breath, sweat or garlic. The one thing that makes up for it all here in on the Moscow metro, are the magnificent metro station platforms that are a joy to look at. They are really quite beautiful, although some do need a little attention and repair. We could not say same the same for the British underground system, that's is dull and just dirty. You can see why they built them the way they did in Russia, to glorify work. The escalators carry the people down into cathedrals for travel- destination work (everyone had a job). Work meant freedom and food for all, in what was communist/Socialist Russia.

Although I am not a communist or socialist, It makes me sad to see what has happened to Russia and her history. Mass consumerism and worship of the car and money have all but killed the country and her past. The only ideology left, (as in the rest of the world), is money and "I have got more than you" syndrome and this is now the new global religion. Russia has just joined everyone else, in my opinion its time for a world change.

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