Metro Shaped by Hand

You can probably tell that I'm obsessed with the Metro in Moscow.

It was opened in 1935, so not one of the first metros in the world but it perhaps was one of the most challenging to build given the soil here in Moscow.

Workers had to deal with sinking sand, underground rivers and limestone - one of the first tunnel sections to be built required the engineers to cross four river flows.

What's also amazing about the construction of this metro is captured in this quote from the Moscow Metro history:

'Work was done mainly by hand since there was a shortage of pneumatic hammers and a lack of rock loaders. The main tools used by the miners were pickaxes, spades and bars. Trolleys were also pulled by hand.'

The color pictures were taken this morning en-route to focus groups.

The b&w picture shows the opening day of the metro in 1935 where people had waited overnight to be the first to ride the train at 7am.