The idea of creating an urban underground railway — a metro — in the northern capital of the Russian Empire, Saint Petersburg, has a long history dating back to the 19th century. As early as 1820, engineer Torgovanov appealed through Count Miloradovich to Alexander I with a project to build a tunnel under the Neva River. The proposal received the resolution: "Issue Torgovanov 200 rubles from the office and oblige him by signature not to engage in projects henceforth, but to practice the trades appropriate to him." Similar ideas were also unsuccessfully proposed by the famous self-taught inventor Kulibin. Due to circumstances, the projects of the famous "father of tunnel construction," the English engineer of French origin Marc Isambard Brunel, also remained unrealized in Saint Petersburg at that time. In 1889, the Board of the Baltic Railway put forward the first project for an intracity line between the Baltic and Finland stations. This marked the beginning of numerous proposals and developments — a kind of forerunners of the Saint Petersburg metro — which were submitted almost annually from the late 1890s by various organizations and private individuals. In most early projects, the urban railway was primarily intended to connect all the stations with a single line and to relieve traffic on Nevsky Prospect — the main thoroughfare of the Russian capital. However, the struggle of various often conflicting interests during the discussion of all these projects in numerous agencies, and the need for large financial expenditures to implement them, proved to be insurmountable obstacles to the realization of the Saint Petersburg metro idea at that time. The return to this idea occurred only in the 1930s, in a completely different historical era. The same fate befell the first metro projects in Moscow at the beginning of the century. Construction of the Saint Petersburg metro began only in 1941, but during the war, metro construction forces were redirected to building warehouses and railway branches in besieged Leningrad. Metro construction resumed only in 1947. Eight years later, the first section of the metro from "Ploshchad Vosstaniya" to "Avtovo" was opened, and now the Saint Petersburg metro has 5 lines and 72 stations. On average, stations of the Saint Petersburg metro are located at a depth of 57 meters underground, with the deepest being "Admiralteyskaya" at 86 meters. This is due to the city being built on shifting water-saturated soils, and for a long time, there were no technologies that allowed construction in such conditions. Therefore, stations were laid at depths where dense sedimentary rock — Cambrian clay — lies. It resists moisture excellently, which is why it is used for building foundations on land with a high groundwater level, and is also added to masonry and plaster mixes. In the early years, workers used jackhammers and shovels manually, like in mines. Only in 1949 did Leningrad builders get their first tunneling shield: it bites into the rock with a rotating cutter, after which the rock is removed onto a conveyor and taken out of the tunnel. However, to get the shield and workers underground, a shaft or "vertical well" must first be built. To do this, it is necessary to freeze the "quick sands" — sands saturated with groundwater. Neither machines nor people can work with them. This is done as follows: boreholes are drilled around the perimeter of the shaft down to the Cambrian clays, plastic pipes are inserted, and water with salts is poured in. Then surface installations circulate this cold water in a loop, like a freezer, and within two months the soil freezes. Excavators and jackhammers cut the soil by one meter. After that, a reinforced concrete ring is assembled around the shaft perimeter, and the gap between it and the soil is filled with compacting and waterproofing solutions. Then the process repeats: soil excavation, ring installation, and injection. Only when the required depth is reached is the shield assembled in a special room or "chamber," which will start tunneling. Among all Russian metros, only the Saint Petersburg metro has closed stations. For example, "Gostiny Dvor" or "Petrogradskaya." Their halls are separated from the tracks by walls with doors that open only after the train arrives. Because of this design, they are often called "horizontal elevators." The reason for the appearance of closed stations is more prosaic — they were cheaper to build due to simpler technology. The construction did not require complex reassembly of the tunneling shield, and the tunnels hidden from view did not need expensive finishing. In practice, however, all the savings were "eaten up" by maintenance: the electric motors of the doors, which open and close hundreds of times a day, consume a lot of electricity, and they also need repairs and salaries for repair workers. This has been the case since 1961, when the first closed station, "Park Pobedy," was built. Moreover, "horizontal elevators" have very low throughput capacity. Nikita Khrushchev, the main fighter against Stalin's cult of personality, came to power in the year of the "father of nations'" death — 1953, while the first section of the Leningrad metro was launched in 1955. After the change of leaders, the architects of the "Avtovo" station managed to adjust the project to the new reality. Thus, instead of the inscription "Glory to Great Stalin" on the ceiling of the ticket hall, another appeared — "To the valiant defenders of Leningrad, who defended the hero city in battles." According to legend, another station of the first metro section — "Narvskaya" — was supposed to be called "Stalinskaya." However, metro history experts say that this name does not appear on any drawings. The names "Ploshchad Stachek" or "Narvskie Vorota" were used, without mentioning Stalin. Originally, the main decoration of the station was a mosaic "Stalin on the Tribune," but as part of the fight against the cult of personality in 1961, the panel was removed. According to one version, it was covered with a marble false wall without removal. According to another, it was dismantled and taken away. In any case, today it is unknown whether the mosaic has survived. The platform hall of "Narvskaya" is decorated with 48 relief images of people of various professions. There is an opinion that in the relief "Glory to Labor!" in the center, Stalin was also supposed to stand, but instead, a man with a flag appeared. Perhaps this is why the surrounding crowd looks at the ordinary worker with special enthusiasm. In 1974, a washout occurred on the section between the "Lesnaya" and "Ploshchad Muzhestva" stations — an exploratory borehole was drilled into the lower tunnel, and water flooded in. Workers barely managed to close the shutter to save themselves. As a result, a kilometer of tunnels was flooded, and sinkholes appeared on the surface, causing buildings to crack. The accident repeated in 1994 when water with sand washed away metal and concrete. To avoid such surprises, the "Admiralteyskaya" station was decided to be built as deep as possible. It appeared on drawings back in the 1950s, but due to very complex soil, proximity to the Neva, and abundant historic buildings on the surface, its construction was very difficult. It was laid only in 1997, but until its opening in 2011, it was a "ghost station," which trains passed without stopping, and passengers saw only a dimly lit hall. Construction was prolonged also because building materials for the station were delivered by train at night or brought from the shaft located at the corner of Zagorodny Prospect and Gorokhovaya Street. Builders had to travel two kilometers back and forth along a service narrow-gauge railway. In the winter of 1994-1995, the situation on the "Lesnaya" — "Ploshchad Muzhestva" section worsened again. During the summer and autumn of 1995, thanks to constant work, the situation was still kept under control, but by December it sharply deteriorated. On December 1, the last trains passed through the section. After that, both tunnels were filled with pressurized tap water to prevent subsidence of the earth's surface in the area of Ploshchad Muzhestva and destruction of nearby buildings; hermetic seals were welded, and two concrete plugs were constructed on both sides, plus one in the approach tunnel. In this form, the section ceased to exist. Restoring the section took a long 9 years, hindered by lack of funding and empty promises from authorities at all levels. "Lenmetrogiprotrans" proposed a design solution to build bypass tunnels located several hundred meters away from the existing route and a couple of dozen meters higher. Eliminating the consequences of the "Washout" accident cost the city a lot of money and time, seriously affecting the pace of construction of new metro sections and ultimately contributing to the overall lag in the development of the northern capital's transport infrastructure, which is keenly felt to this day. On June 10, 1999, the outer concrete canopy of the vestibule of the "Sennaya Ploshchad" station collapsed. Seven people died in the tragedy. This is the only accident in the history of the Saint Petersburg metro that resulted in human casualties. Immediately after the accident, the canopies of vestibules of other stations built in those years were either reinforced or dismantled. Today, the Saint Petersburg metro is the second largest and busiest metro in Russia, the fourth in Europe (after Moscow, Paris, and London), and the nineteenth in the world. By length of operated lines, it ranks 41st in the world and 8th in Europe (after the metros of Moscow, London, Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Valencia, and Barcelona). Sources: https://metro.spb.ru/historymetro.html https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Петербургский_метрополитен

Jermaine