travel and transport eyfs

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Reception transport: on the move.

This topic provides learning opportunities on the theme of travel, perfect for Reception children who love to move around any way they can. Children explore travelling over land, on water, through the air and into space. They consider how they move through their local area and where they go on holidays. The topic includes a block on classic tales of journeys such as The Wind in the Willows , Rosie's Walk , and the very different woodland walks taken by Little Red Riding Hood and the Gruffalo.

How many different ways can you move on your own feet? What footwear do you wear for the journeys around and from your home? Explore your local journeys through expressive dramatic movement.

Where do you go on special days and why? Inspired by your holiday journeys, journeys to visit relatives and your special faith journeys, tell Ladybird, who has left the farm to go to London, all about your travels.

Set off over land to explore the climates and environments of mountains, deserts and icy lands. Explore travel using cars, trains and buses. Investigate wheels and make vehicles.

Have you been in a paddleboat, rowing boat, barge, ship or yacht? Have you travelled over a pond, canal, river or the sea? Listen to the adventures of Mr Gumpy, Mrs Armitage, the Owl and the Pussycat.

Learn about air travel. Make paper aeroplanes and air balloons. Tell stories about airborne adventures and be inspired by famous artists to create your own artworks.

Use your imagination to travel away from Earth and into space. Learn about rockets, the moon, stars and the planets. Have a visit from an alien and teach them about earth life and space travel.

Plan journeys to a Woodland Classroom. Explore wild environments and make nature art, journey sticks and fairy houses. Use the forest as your classroom.

Listen to the classic journeys taken by Rosie the Hen, the Gruffalo, Little Red Riding Hood, Mr Gumpy, Toad, Mole, Ratty and Badger. Take part in role-plays, make puppets and create your own imaginative journey stories.

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EYFS Medium Term Planning: Travel and Transport

Designed by an experienced Early Years teachers to meet the requirements of the EYFS 2021, this MTP covers all areas of learning (and includes a phase one phonics planning bank linked to vehicles)

Nursery Focused Document for Reception please look at the Transport EYFS Planning Bank

Includes knowledge and skills progressions, planned enhancements, linked texts, vocabulary, focus tasks and assessment checkpoints.

Easily navigated by SLT and subject leaders as links the learning areas to key subjects.

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• June 23, 2011

'Transport' is a topic that is easily accessed by children. We all have to travel from A to B, even if we walk everywhere. It is a great subject for inviting children's own experiences, as well as involving parents and carers and the local community. Invite a taxi or bus driver in to talk about what they do, or a parent who travels a lot for their work to talk about airports and planes. 'Transport' is also a way in to looking at how we impact on the environment and what we can do to make the earth, and ourselves, healthier.

In this section you will find a mind map and a list of the areas of learning with some quick suggestions and ideas. There are also activities for each area, linked to the EYFS, and a book list to accompany the topic.

This Topic includes a book list, mind map and suggested activities to cover the six areas of learning. The mindmap bullet points are included as a separate document for ease of reference, but also listed in the 'Ideas and Suggestions' sections below. Most of the early years publications available have covered this topic, often more than once, so don't forget to check your own resources! There are usually book recommendations and other resource suggestions in the topic forum as well, so make sure you have a browse through the discussions to see if there is anything else of interest.

Personal Social and Emotional Development (PSED)

Communication, language and literacy (CLL)

Knowledge and understanding of the world (kuw).

Mathematical Development (MD)

Physical Development (PD)

Creative development (cd), personal, social and emotional development (psed), ideas and suggestions.

• Road safety
• Small world road and track activities
• Discuss personal journeys the children have been on
• Use chairs to be an impromptu bus/plane/car/train
• Healthy and eco ways of travelling – walking, biking, public transport
• Act out unusual ways to travel, e.g. Magic carpet/hot air balloon
• Circle time
• Picture and poster resources
• Large cardboard boxes/packing crates can be transformed into any vehicle
• Rescue vehicles – ambulance/fire engine/helicopter/life boat

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Getting to Australia /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

( Back to contents list )

Ideas and Suggestions:

• Photographs of different types of transport
• Role play – travel agents/airport check in/train station/campsite/garage
• Small world road and track layouts
• Collection of holiday postcards
• Story making – a magic carpet ride/a hot air balloon ride/ a ride on a broomstick
• Memory and list games – ‘I packed my bag and in it I put…’
• Audio resources of traffic sounds
• Books, fiction and non fiction
• Songs and rhymes
• Play writing opportunities – lists/letters/postcards
• Make tickets for train/plane/bus journeys

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Travelling snacks /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

• Map making – which way do you come to nursery/school?
• Collection of maps to investigate
• Compare past and present transport
• Collection of tickets from different modes of transport
• Directions games and stop-go games
• Outdoor play – homemade water ways with sections of plastic guttering
• Outdoor play – old car tyres to roll around
• Wet sand tray – tracks
• Water tray – boats
• How do animals travel?
• Visit from local taxi/bus driver
• Take a bike apart using spanners, screwdrivers etc.

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Display example

Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy (psrn).

• Data handling – how do we come to nursery?
• Data handling – monitor traffic – record as bar charts/pictograms
• Positional words and games
• Maths trails – follow the tracks
• Sorting vehicles
• Making 3D models of vehicles
• Role play areas
• Count down for a rocket launch
• Using money in role play – e.g. buying tickets
• Make paper aeroplanes

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All aboard /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

• Transport mimes – getting on a train/into a boat/in a car
• Movements based on vehicles
• Follow my leader
• Stop/go games using traffic light colours
• Positional games
• Fast/slow games based on modes of transport
• Construction kits
• Make tracks with footprints
• Set up an obstacle course to travel along
• Action songs

The bell on the bus /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

Traffic jam /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

• Tyre prints/rubbings
• Painting with wheels
• 3D models of vehicles
• Floating music and hot air balloons
• Book collections about single types of transport e.g. stories about cars
• Selection of large cardboard boxes for imaginative play
• Imitate vehicle sounds with musical instruments
• Collection of audio resources – vehicle sounds
• Making postcards
• Dressing up in uniforms
• Body sounds and rhythms

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Blast off /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

'Transport' Forum

Accompanying this article we have a dedicated Forum area - please feel free to join in and contribute to discussions and suggestions on the topic. Find the 'Transport' forum here

Other Resources

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Get moving!

Transport is a familiar topic focus for younger primary children.  Exploring different aspects of 'getting moving' from a science point of view, this list provides ideas to use with children as they engage with a variety of different forms of transport, often in unfamiliar contexts. This list shows how to link science to the topic, tips on using the resources, suggestions for further use and background subject knowledge to support teachers in delivering the science objectives. The resources support the teaching of everyday materials , they also support early ideas around forces.

Visit the primary resources for cross curricular topics webpage to access all resource lists: https://www.stem.org.uk/cross-curricular-topics-resources

Primary Engineer: Bloodhound SSC Build a Prototype Car

Quality Assured Category: Engineering Publisher: Primary Engineer

Bloodhound SSC is a car being designed to travel at 1050mph by a British Team, aiming to break the world land speed record.  In this resource from Primary Engineer, children design and build a prototype car to investigate the use of stored energy such as balloons and rubber bands, using easy to find resources and tools.  Much of the content of this resource is pitched well beyond the scope of KS1 children, but using the Bloodhound SSC car and related web film clips as a stimulus for investigation is bound to engage. 

Children might, in response to the images and ideas they see, design and make their own prototype cars, using construction kits and junk modelling materials to build the fastest car they can.  Choosing and using materials, aspects of aerodynamics, concerns about streamlining and the addition of nose cones to designs might all be investigated and the final cars tested competitively, in a race down a ramp and across the school hall floor.

Formula 1 in Schools

Quality Assured Category: Science Publisher: Reach Out CPD

This short film clip discusses how F1 and motor sport can be the basis of a cross curricular project where children design and make racing cars, thinking about friction and the aerodynamics. We follow three classes and their teachers on the day of their big race, as they test the design of their model cars in various time challenges.

Provided by Reach Out CPD, the short film demonstrates one way in which science can be applied to a real life context.

Ticket to Ride

Quality Assured Category: Design and technology Publisher: British Science Association

This activity pack contains nine activities on the theme of transportation and are great for use in class or in  a science week or club. They include: the best method for carrying a heavy load, designing a paddleboat, investigating the balancing points in boats, looking at crater size and designing and making catapults.

Rocket Images and Video

Quality Assured Category: Design and technology Publisher: NASA

NASA's Space Shuttle may be a well-known launch vehicle, but the majority of launches still take place using rockets. These regularly carry satellites into orbit. These materials show images of rockets, such as the Saturn V which powered the Apollo missions and current Delta and Atlas rockets. There is also a video showing the launch of a Delta rocket.

Can It Fly?

Quality Assured Category: Design and technology Publisher: Innovate Educate

Three activities with teachers notes aimed at Key Stage One linking forces and movement and D&T. Use a presentation and card activity to look at different animals and decide if they can fly. Investigate helium-filled balloons and make and test paper aeroplanes.

The activities look at:

Can it fly? Children look at a range of items and suggest if they are able to fly or not using a presentation and a card sort activity.

Why do balloons fly? Children investigate the lifting force produced by helium-filled balloons.

Paper aeroplanes Children make and test-fly paper planes. This simple activity allows children to make paper planes and investigate different types of designs.

Background notes are included for teachers that introduce the concepts in the development of flight from hot-air balloons to powered aircraft.

Rocket Mice

If you haven't aready discovered The Science Museum website and resource base, make sure you do!  This activity, 'Rocket Mice', involves children in investigating what it takes to launch a 'rocket mouse', complete with ears, tail and whiskers, into the air.  Exploring questions such as, 'What difference does the size of my mouse's ears make?' or 'How does the size of the container the mouse launches from affect how high he flies?', allows children to have early experiences of forces in action and of fair testing.

Do Try This at Home*suitable for home teaching*

Quality Assured Category: Science Publisher: Institute of Physics

This set of twelve colourful postcards provides hands on activities which link to the topics of electricity, sound, forces, and changes of state. Ideal for use in the classroom, the mini-investigations are fun to do and get children thinking about the concepts involved. They are also perfect for use in after school clubs and science weeks.

Two cartoon characters, Marvin and Milo demonstrate the fun experiments, which are designed to appeal to primary age children. Of the activity ideas included, Alka -Seltzer rockets and making a foil boat are most relevant to this topic.

This resource has been provided by the Institute of Physics.

International Space Station (ISS) Education Kit - Primary

Quality Assured Category: Science Publisher: European Space Agency (ESA)

The ISS Education Kit, from ESA, is a resource for teachers with ideas on how to use the International Space Station as a thematic frame for teaching a wide variety of topics.

The A4-sized binder contains four chapters devoted to explaining various aspects of life in space and what is it like to live and work on board the International Space Station. Each chapter contains background information, worksheets and a teachers' guide. A glossary and colour posters complete the content. Each chapter starts with the sections for the pupils with texts and worksheets and is followed by a “Teacher’s Guide”.

Chapter 2:  A mission to space, includes a series of activities which are particularly relevant to this topic.  Children sequence the stages of a rocket launch, make a simple rocket themselves and investigate how high it will fly.

CLEAPSS Marble Run competition

Challenge your class to take part in the 2017 CLEAPSS Primary Science competition.  In 'Marble Keep-y-Uppy!', children have to design and make a marble run that will keep a marble in continuous motion for the longest time.  There are prizes for all ages, including KS1, so encourage children in your class to have a go!

Design a boat

Children use a variety of materials to construct a boat that will float.  They then investigate what size of load their boats might be able to carry, potentially testing their creations to destruction, as they risk them sinking to the bottom of a water tank! This is part of a larger collection of resources linked to to the Polar Explorer Programme , the educational programme linked to the RRS Sir David Attenborough research vessel.

Floating boat challenge

In this floating boat challenge, children are to build a boat that can float and support 25 pennies for at least 10 seconds —without leaking, sinking, or tipping over. Each team has access to limited materials, e.g. some plastic wrap, plastic straws, paper cups, masking tape  and 25 pennies.  They thentest their boats in a large water tank. The format of this resource may look quite wordy, but there are lots of photos showing possible boat designs using a variety of materials. Hopefully your class will come up with a lot more of their own creations.

Dancing in Science

Quality Assured Category: Science Publisher: Teachers TV

A video showing a lesson idea for incorporating science and PE. Children explore their own movement and learn about how their bodies are affected by exercise. Photographs could be taken of different ways of moving and then in a next lesson children could work in groups each holding a card showing a different movement. They could order themselves to show movements from fastest to slowest and answer questions on simple comparisons. Other photograph cards could also be included and groups decide where they should go for example an adult walking, a remote control car moving, a toddler on a ride-on toy.

How Will Your Roly Poly Move?

Quality Assured Category: Design skills Publisher: Nuffield Foundation

Explore,design and make moving toys in this project which combines D& T and science. Working in pairs children could ask predict how different toys will move and then test this out. Children could investigate which type of roly poly travels the fastest using a ramp or whether roly polys with bigger wheels travel further than those with smaller wheels.

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Transfer between Moscow airports

There are four airports in Moscow: Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Vnukovo and Zhukovsky. They are located in four different and distanced ends of the city. The airports are distanced not only from each other but from the city center as well. Therefore, the problem of getting quick and cheap transport to travel between airports is predominant. You should know two main means of transport to get from one airport to another or to the city center.

If your transfer in Moscow is between two airports, you should obtain Russian visa .

Transfer during the day (2 to 3 hours)

Three of four airports (Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Vnukovo) are connected to the city centre with Aeroexpress trains. Travel time to rail terminals is from 35 to 55 minutes. Both Aeroexpress and Moscow Metro work from 05:30 AM to 01:00 AM. Free Wi-Fi is available both inside the Aeroexpress train and in the Metro. To travel between Aeroexpress terminals you need to choose circle line (brown). All three terminals are connected with that line. Journey takes about 15 minutes.

You may also want to use a taxi between Aeroexpress terminals. All three Rail Terminals situated in the city center and the Garden Ring road ties them together, so traveling between most often should take no more than 20 minutes.

Transfer at night (1 hour)

Driving between airports takes nearly 1 hour at night. You may ask the driver to go through the city centre. The journey will take a little longer, but it’s a worth thing since Moscow looks stunning at night.

Taxi between airports costs about 2300 rub. (€23.09). If you finally decided to take a taxi, you should avoid touts operating in front of every arrival terminal. Better book or even prebook a car from the official taxi company listed here . Free Wi-Fi in alsmost every official taxi car.

Moscow Airports and Aeroexpress Terminals Locations

Please note that euro prices next to rouble ones in our guide are always based on today's rates.

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In Transit: Notes from the Underground

Jun 06 2018.

Spend some time in one of Moscow’s finest museums.

Subterranean commuting might not be anyone’s idea of a good time, but even in a city packing the war-games treasures and priceless bejeweled eggs of the Kremlin Armoury and the colossal Soviet pavilions of the VDNKh , the Metro holds up as one of Moscow’s finest museums. Just avoid rush hour.

The Metro is stunning and provides an unrivaled insight into the city’s psyche, past and present, but it also happens to be the best way to get around. Moscow has Uber, and the Russian version called Yandex Taxi , but also some nasty traffic. Metro trains come around every 90 seconds or so, at a more than 99 percent on-time rate. It’s also reasonably priced, with a single ride at 55 cents (and cheaper in bulk). From history to tickets to rules — official and not — here’s what you need to know to get started.

A Brief Introduction Buying Tickets Know Before You Go (Down) Rules An Easy Tour

A Brief Introduction

Moscow’s Metro was a long time coming. Plans for rapid transit to relieve the city’s beleaguered tram system date back to the Imperial era, but a couple of wars and a revolution held up its development. Stalin revived it as part of his grand plan to modernize the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s. The first lines and tunnels were constructed with help from engineers from the London Underground, although Stalin’s secret police decided that they had learned too much about Moscow’s layout and had them arrested on espionage charges and deported.

The beauty of its stations (if not its trains) is well-documented, and certainly no accident. In its illustrious first phases and particularly after the Second World War, the greatest architects of Soviet era were recruited to create gleaming temples celebrating the Revolution, the USSR, and the war triumph. No two stations are exactly alike, and each of the classic showpieces has a theme. There are world-famous shrines to Futurist architecture, a celebration of electricity, tributes to individuals and regions of the former Soviet Union. Each marble slab, mosaic tile, or light fixture was placed with intent, all in service to a station’s aesthetic; each element, f rom the smallest brass ear of corn to a large blood-spattered sword on a World War II mural, is an essential part of the whole.

The Metro is a monument to the Soviet propaganda project it was intended to be when it opened in 1935 with the slogan “Building a Palace for the People”. It brought the grand interiors of Imperial Russia to ordinary Muscovites, celebrated the Soviet Union’s past achievements while promising its citizens a bright Soviet future, and of course, it was a show-piece for the world to witness the might and sophistication of life in the Soviet Union.

It may be a museum, but it’s no relic. U p to nine million people use it daily, more than the London Underground and New York Subway combined. (Along with, at one time, about 20 stray dogs that learned to commute on the Metro.)

In its 80+ year history, the Metro has expanded in phases and fits and starts, in step with the fortunes of Moscow and Russia. Now, partly in preparation for the World Cup 2018, it’s also modernizing. New trains allow passengers to walk the entire length of the train without having to change carriages. The system is becoming more visitor-friendly. (There are helpful stickers on the floor marking out the best selfie spots .) But there’s a price to modernity: it’s phasing out one of its beloved institutions, the escalator attendants. Often they are middle-aged or elderly women—“ escalator grandmas ” in news accounts—who have held the post for decades, sitting in their tiny kiosks, scolding commuters for bad escalator etiquette or even bad posture, or telling jokes . They are slated to be replaced, when at all, by members of the escalator maintenance staff.

For all its achievements, the Metro lags behind Moscow’s above-ground growth, as Russia’s capital sprawls ever outwards, generating some of the world’s worst traffic jams . But since 2011, the Metro has been in the middle of an ambitious and long-overdue enlargement; 60 new stations are opening by 2020. If all goes to plan, the 2011-2020 period will have brought 125 miles of new tracks and over 100 new stations — a 40 percent increase — the fastest and largest expansion phase in any period in the Metro’s history.

Facts: 14 lines Opening hours: 5 a.m-1 a.m. Rush hour(s): 8-10 a.m, 4-8 p.m. Single ride: 55₽ (about 85 cents) Wi-Fi network-wide

Buying Tickets

• Ticket machines have a button to switch to English.
• You can buy specific numbers of rides: 1, 2, 5, 11, 20, or 60. Hold up fingers to show how many rides you want to buy.
• There is also a 90-minute ticket , which gets you 1 trip on the metro plus an unlimited number of transfers on other transport (bus, tram, etc) within 90 minutes.
• Or, you can buy day tickets with unlimited rides: one day (218₽/ US$4), three days (415₽/US$7) or seven days (830₽/US$15). Check the rates here to stay up-to-date.
• If you’re going to be using the Metro regularly over a few days, it’s worth getting a Troika card , a contactless, refillable card you can use on all public transport. Using the Metro is cheaper with one of these: a single ride is 36₽, not 55₽. Buy them and refill them in the Metro stations, and they’re valid for 5 years, so you can keep it for next time. Or, if you have a lot of cash left on it when you leave, you can get it refunded at the Metro Service Centers at Ulitsa 1905 Goda, 25 or at Staraya Basmannaya 20, Building 1.
• You can also buy silicone bracelets and keychains with built-in transport chips that you can use as a Troika card. (A Moscow Metro Fitbit!) So far, you can only get these at the Pushkinskaya metro station Live Helpdesk and souvenir shops in the Mayakovskaya and Trubnaya metro stations. The fare is the same as for the Troika card.
• You can also use Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Rules, spoken and unspoken

No smoking, no drinking, no filming, no littering. Photography is allowed, although it used to be banned.

Stand to the right on the escalator. Break this rule and you risk the wrath of the legendary escalator attendants. (No shenanigans on the escalators in general.)

Get out of the way. Find an empty corner to hide in when you get off a train and need to stare at your phone. Watch out getting out of the train in general; when your train doors open, people tend to appear from nowhere or from behind ornate marble columns, walking full-speed.

Always offer your seat to elderly ladies (what are you, a monster?).

An Easy Tour

This is no Metro Marathon ( 199 stations in 20 hours ). It’s an easy tour, taking in most—though not all—of the notable stations, the bulk of it going clockwise along the Circle line, with a couple of short detours. These stations are within minutes of one another, and the whole tour should take about 1-2 hours.

Start at Mayakovskaya Metro station , at the corner of Tverskaya and Garden Ring,  Triumfalnaya Square, Moskva, Russia, 125047.

1. Mayakovskaya.  Named for Russian Futurist Movement poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and an attempt to bring to life the future he imagined in his poems. (The Futurist Movement, natch, was all about a rejecting the past and celebrating all things speed, industry, modern machines, youth, modernity.) The result: an Art Deco masterpiece that won the National Grand Prix for architecture at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. It’s all smooth, rounded shine and light, and gentle arches supported by columns of dark pink marble and stainless aircraft steel. Each of its 34 ceiling niches has a mosaic. During World War II, the station was used as an air-raid shelter and, at one point, a bunker for Stalin. He gave a subdued but rousing speech here in Nov. 6, 1941 as the Nazis bombed the city above.

Take the 3/Green line one station to:

2. Belorusskaya. Opened in 1952, named after the connected Belarussky Rail Terminal, which runs trains between Moscow and Belarus. This is a light marble affair with a white, cake-like ceiling, lined with Belorussian patterns and 12 Florentine ceiling mosaics depicting life in Belarussia when it was built.

Transfer onto the 1/Brown line. Then, one stop (clockwise) t o:

3. Novoslobodskaya.  This station was designed around the stained-glass panels, which were made in Latvia, because Alexey Dushkin, the Soviet starchitect who dreamed it up (and also designed Mayakovskaya station) couldn’t find the glass and craft locally. The stained glass is the same used for Riga’s Cathedral, and the panels feature plants, flowers, members of the Soviet intelligentsia (musician, artist, architect) and geometric shapes.

Go two stops east on the 1/Circle line to:

4. Komsomolskaya. Named after the Komsomol, or the Young Communist League, this might just be peak Stalin Metro style. Underneath the hub for three regional railways, it was intended to be a grand gateway to Moscow and is today its busiest station. It has chandeliers; a yellow ceiling with Baroque embellishments; and in the main hall, a colossal red star overlaid on golden, shimmering tiles. Designer Alexey Shchusev designed it as an homage to the speech Stalin gave at Red Square on Nov. 7, 1941, in which he invoked Russia’s illustrious military leaders as a pep talk to Soviet soldiers through the first catastrophic year of the war.   The station’s eight large mosaics are of the leaders referenced in the speech, such as Alexander Nevsky, a 13th-century prince and military commander who bested German and Swedish invading armies.

One more stop clockwise to Kurskaya station,  and change onto the 3/Blue  line, and go one stop to:

5. Baumanskaya.   Opened in 1944. Named for the Bolshevik Revolutionary Nikolai Bauman , whose monument and namesake district are aboveground here. Though he seemed like a nasty piece of work (he apparently once publicly mocked a woman he had impregnated, who later hung herself), he became a Revolutionary martyr when he was killed in 1905 in a skirmish with a monarchist, who hit him on the head with part of a steel pipe. The station is in Art Deco style with atmospherically dim lighting, and a series of bronze sculptures of soldiers and homefront heroes during the War. At one end, there is a large mosaic portrait of Lenin.

Stay on that train direction one more east to:

6. Elektrozavodskaya. As you may have guessed from the name, this station is the Metro’s tribute to all thing electrical, built in 1944 and named after a nearby lightbulb factory. It has marble bas-relief sculptures of important figures in electrical engineering, and others illustrating the Soviet Union’s war-time struggles at home. The ceiling’s recurring rows of circular lamps give the station’s main tunnel a comforting glow, and a pleasing visual effect.

Double back two stops to Kurskaya station , and change back to the 1/Circle line. Sit tight for six stations to:

7. Kiyevskaya. This was the last station on the Circle line to be built, in 1954, completed under Nikita Khrushchev’ s guidance, as a tribute to his homeland, Ukraine. Its three large station halls feature images celebrating Ukraine’s contributions to the Soviet Union and Russo-Ukrainian unity, depicting musicians, textile-working, soldiers, farmers. (One hall has frescoes, one mosaics, and the third murals.) Shortly after it was completed, Khrushchev condemned the architectural excesses and unnecessary luxury of the Stalin era, which ushered in an epoch of more austere Metro stations. According to the legend at least, he timed the policy in part to ensure no Metro station built after could outshine Kiyevskaya.

Change to the 3/Blue line and go one stop west.

8. Park Pobedy. This is the deepest station on the Metro, with one of the world’s longest escalators, at 413 feet. If you stand still, the escalator ride to the surface takes about three minutes .) Opened in 2003 at Victory Park, the station celebrates two of Russia’s great military victories. Each end has a mural by Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli, who also designed the “ Good Defeats Evil ” statue at the UN headquarters in New York. One mural depicts the Russian generals’ victory over the French in 1812 and the other, the German surrender of 1945. The latter is particularly striking; equal parts dramatic, triumphant, and gruesome. To the side, Red Army soldiers trample Nazi flags, and if you look closely there’s some blood spatter among the detail. Still, the biggest impressions here are the marble shine of the chessboard floor pattern and the pleasingly geometric effect if you view from one end to the other.

Keep going one more stop west to:

9. Slavyansky Bulvar.  One of the Metro’s youngest stations, it opened in 2008. With far higher ceilings than many other stations—which tend to have covered central tunnels on the platforms—it has an “open-air” feel (or as close to it as you can get, one hundred feet under). It’s an homage to French architect Hector Guimard, he of the Art Nouveau entrances for the Paris M é tro, and that’s precisely what this looks like: A Moscow homage to the Paris M é tro, with an additional forest theme. A Cyrillic twist on Guimard’s Metro-style lettering over the benches, furnished with t rees and branch motifs, including creeping vines as towering lamp-posts.

Stay on the 3/Blue line and double back four stations to:

10. Arbatskaya. Its first iteration, Arbatskaya-Smolenskaya station, was damaged by German bombs in 1941. It was rebuilt in 1953, and designed to double as a bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war, although unusually for stations built in the post-war phase, this one doesn’t have a war theme. It may also be one of the system’s most elegant: Baroque, but toned down a little, with red marble floors and white ceilings with gilded bronze c handeliers.

Jump back on the 3/Blue line  in the same direction and take it one more stop:

11. Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square). Opened in 1938, and serving Red Square and the Kremlin . Its renowned central hall has marble columns flanked by 76 bronze statues of Soviet heroes: soldiers, students, farmers, athletes, writers, parents. Some of these statues’ appendages have a yellow sheen from decades of Moscow’s commuters rubbing them for good luck. Among the most popular for a superstitious walk-by rub: the snout of a frontier guard’s dog, a soldier’s gun (where the touch of millions of human hands have tapered the gun barrel into a fine, pointy blade), a baby’s foot, and a woman’s knee. (A brass rooster also sports the telltale gold sheen, though I am told that rubbing the rooster is thought to bring bad luck. )

Now take the escalator up, and get some fresh air.

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