"Let me state it simply: We are the best in the world — based on all kinds of criteria," Dmitry Gayev, the head of the "Moscow Metropolitan" as it is formally known, said in an interview with AFP.

Like its New York counterpart that turned 100 years old in 2004, the Moscow subway is a monument to 20th-century engineering and urban planning that made city life workable for the masses, underpinning industrial development in the East and West.

But by contrast, the Moscow metro transports more than twice the number of passengers on an average day — nine million, as opposed to 4.5 million in New York — and does so with greater speed than most other subways in the world.

Stations are far apart (average distance is 1.8 kilometres), trains are fast (some travel at up to 90km/h) and the network is deep (one station is 86 metres below ground).

A trip back in history
But the unique character of Moscow's metro lies less in the data describing it than in the eye-popping, other-worldly works of Soviet socialist-realist art and architecture that adorn it and the urban legends surrounding it.

This astonishing combination makes a metro traveller's descent from the flashy capitalist glitz at Moscow's street level downward to the workaday, communist ideology-inspired train level feel like a trip back in history.

Take the legend of 'Metro Two', a parallel secret subway system said to have been built by Stalin linking the Kremlin with key buildings, outlying airports, strategic underground command posts — and luxurious country mansions.

"Does it really exist?" asked Gayev, raising an eyebrow theatrically. "Let me ask you this: Are there not secret subway lines under Paris or Washington? I would be surprised if there weren't."

That some sort of private underground rail around the Kremlin for use once only by Soviet Communist Party elite exists is disputed by almost no one, and purported 'maps' of the system can easily be found on the internet.

One story has it that soon after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin gave two visiting NATO generals a private tour of Metro Two, so angering the KGB that it ordered all access to the secret network sealed and guarded.

"I really don't look after that kind of thing," Gayev demurred when pressed for details.

Art and architecture
Or take the 'Diggers of the Underground Planet', a loose-knit group of young urban spelunkers with cult-like status whose declared mission is to explore the maze of metro and sewage tunnels under Moscow in search of hidden secrets.

Those secrets, so the myth runs, include catacombs, torture chambers and the lost library of Ivan the Terrible, a collection of ancient manuscripts brought to Russia by the niece of the last Byzantine emperor in the 16th century.

But for more tangible originality, no subway system in the world comes close to matching the Moscow metro's effort to impress travellers with elaborate art and architecture, virtually all of it in the socialist-realist mould.

"The idea was to make people feel comfortable," Gayev said, referring to Stalin's decision to recruit leading Soviet and foreign artists and architects to design many stations of the metro, which first opened on May 15, 1935.

One station, Mayakovskaya, is considered an architectural standout of its time, with a vault divided into 36 oval cupolas adorned with mosaics depicting 'A Day in the Land of the Soviets'.

Another, Ploshad Revolutsii, contains literally dozens of much-larger-than-life bronze sculptures depicting model Soviet male and female workers going about the daily toil of building a communist utopia.

"I think they are beautiful and so I make sure they are not damaged, along with my regular job," said Valentina Bogdanova, one of the thousands of red-capped women who monitor train comings and goings in every station, who are referred to popularly as 'Little Red Riding Hoods'.

"I make sure the trains run on time to the second," she said, describing her "regular job," which consists of standing on a crowded metro platform and signalling the driver with a small white paddle when he should pull out.

Ride the Moscow Metro

• Find out more about the Moscow Metro from the official website of the Moscow Metro, but you'll need to be able to read Russian!
• South Africans need a visa to visit Russia. The Russian Consulate in Cape Town suggest that travellers contact www.visatorussia.com for assistance.
• Go to www.russia.com to find out more about visiting Russia.

AFP