spring festival travel rush 2023

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Chunyun - Spring Festival Travel Rush in China

What is chunyun , what are the reasons of chinese new year migration .

Millions of people working or studying out of their hometowns will be hurrying home to reunite with families as the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) approaches. This long-held tradition is the main reason for the rush. The other is that the holiday is one of the two week-long holidays of the year, a perfect travel time for many people.  

Traveling by Train during Spring Festival Travel Rush

Try not to travel by train during the Chinese New Year Festival. If have to, below are some tips for you to avoid troubles:  

Buy tickets as early as possible

If your China tour is happen to be arranged during the Chinese Lunar New Year, you had better make early plan and contact a travel agency or ticket agency to book ticket for you. To book the ticket on your own, you have to be in China, know some Chinese, and also have a Chinese bank card that supports online payment if booking through internet. Now a ticket can be bought through internet and telephone, or at stations or some ticket windows in towns and cities 15 days before departure; due to adoption of real-name ticket policy and identity verification, some ticket outlets in downtown are unable to issue tickets for foreign/ Hong Kong/ Macau/ Taiwan passengers. For detailed methods of booking a ticket, read How to Buy Tickets  and How to Buy Tickets Online . During the Spring Festival Rush, there are more chances to get a ticket through internet than purchasing at stations or ticket windows.  

Reach the station at least 1.5 hours prior for boarding process

During the Chinese New Year Travel Rush, the steps of taking a train will take longer time as everywhere of railway stations are crowded with people, so you are advised to get to the station at least 1.5 hours prior to departure. Most stations will set temporary waiting rooms outside of station halls and air-condition and heat are not available, so remember to wear warm clothes as most cities in China are cold during Spring Festival.  

Travel light & take care of your luggage

Avoid taking heavy luggage as it will be inconvenient for you waiting in lines to enter the station hall, check in, and get onboard. Also, take good care of your luggage when you are in the crowd. After you get into your carriage, keep your luggage in sight or put it under your lower berth, and try not to expose your personal information to strangers.   

Upon arrival, get to your hotel by official transport

When you get out of a station, ignore the “kind-hearted” venders and take official taxies or buses to your hotel.  

Railway Passenger Figures during Chunyun

Chunyun: Chinese New Year Travel Rush

The Chinese New Year Travel Rush, known as ' Chunyun ' (春运 spring movement), usually begins 15 days ahead of Lunar New Year's Day and lasts for about 40 days (usually from mid-January to late February).

China's biggest and longest national holiday is the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year (CNY), and it causes the biggest and longest annual period of transport stress anywhere in the world.

3 Reasons for the Travel Rush (Chunyun) - Reunions, Vacations, Travel

The Spring Festival is the most important annual festival for Chinese people. It has been a long tradition for Chinese people to return home from work or study and to enjoy a reunion dinner with their families on New Year's Eve, even if traveling across a long distance.

The Spring Festival holiday period falls around the same time frame as Chinese students' winter vacations. Millions of university students head home or leave for school almost at the same time.

Many people, including office workers and migrant laborers, work in big cities hundreds of miles from their hometowns, and the one/two-week-long vacation is always the main time in the year that they return home. Billions of people enjoy their vacations at the same time.

In recent years, travel and tourism has become a popular way for many people to spend their Spring Festival holiday, which has added more stress to the transportation system.

For these reasons, transportation in the country, around the country, and in the major cities and tourist destinations will be very crowded, so it is best to either avoid traveling during this time or get your tickets well in advance. If you plan to travel in this period, our tips will be helpful for you.

Transport Options: Flights, Trains, Long-Distance Buses

Flights - the best transport option.

As most travelers are migrant laborers and students who cannot afford air transport, air transportation within China is hardly affected by the Chinese New Year travel rush. Flights are the best transport option, which don't usually sell out.

As for international flights , it is best to try to get your tickets well in advance, because Chinese people living abroad and Chinese students at foreign universities try to get their tickets well in advance in order to return home during the holidays and university winter vacation periods.

Trains - a Huge Challenge

For Chinese people, rail is the most common mode of transportation because it links most of the main cities of China, and it's relatively economical, convenient, and safe. Even though it has developed rapidly in recent years, it still cannot meet the demand during the Chunyun season.

Traveling by train during the Chinese New Year period is a huge challenge for Chinese people, not to mention for foreigners.

If you have to travel by train during the travel rush period, here are some suggestions for your reference:

• You'd better plan your trip and make reservations early . The pre-holiday ticket sales are expected to peak around early January.
• It is best for foreigners to buy tickets in advance from train station ticket windows or a travel agency like us . Recently, it has become popular for Chinese people to book train tickets on 12306.cn (the official website of China Railway Corporation), but it is not convenient for foreigners.
• If possible, it is best to get a high-speed train ticket or a (soft) sleeper ticket on a regular train. The hard-seat compartments are very crowded and uncomfortable around CNY, and the no-seat tickets are a very uncomfortable choice.

Long-Distance Buses - Not Recommended

Cities that are an overnight journey apart are connected by overnight long-distance buses. This may be your last option if planes and trains are sold out, or too expensive.

Considering safety and the limited conditions on the buses, we don't recommend you take them.

The Busiest Chunyun Cities

In recent decades, there has been a massive migration from rural areas to big cities for work and study. During the travel rush period, many of these people return to their hometowns pre-festival and leave for cities post-festival.

This means the transportation departing from or leaving for big cities is very busy. You are recommended to avoid these cities during the Chunyun period.

In the  Chunyun season, the top 5 cities with the most departures  are usually Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou.

The top 5 cities with the most arrivals  are usually Wuchang, Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, and Zhengzhou.

The top 10 busiest routes were Beijing–Harbin, Beijing–Xi'an, Beijing–Wuhan, Beijing–Zhengzhou, Guangzhou–Wuhan, Guangzhou–Chongqing, Guangzhou–Zhengzhou, Guangzhou–Changsha, Shenzhen–Zhengzhou, and Shanghai–Xi'an.

Click to see the 4 Best Cities for Chinese New Year .

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Chunyun - Spring Festival Travel Rush

The Spring Rush, or Spring Festival Travel Season, is also referred to as  " 春运 chūn yùn" in Chinese. It is a period of busy travel around Chinese New Year, with extremely heavy traffic. The period usually begins 15 days before Lunar New Year's Day and lasts a total of 40 days.

In these 40 days or so, there are about 3 billion passenger journeys, which makes Chunyun   the world's largest annual human migration . Can you imagine how insane it is?

The Spring Rush in 2025 will be from January 13 to Feb 22 , during which train and bus tickets will be in great demand. There are three major reasons for this China-style travel season.

Reason 1: Tradition

The birth of the spring rush mainly came from Chinese tradition.

At the beginning of the lunar year, the Spring Festival is the most important holiday in China. No matter how far from home, it's a long-held tradition for most Chinese to return home from work or study for family reunions on New Year's Eve and to celebrate the New Year together, which means a lot to the whole family.

Reason 2: Economy

The word "Chunyun" was first coined in the People's Daily newspaper, in 1980.

Since China's reform and opening up in the late 1970s, with the relaxation of restrictions on the flow of people and increasing economic opportunities in big cities, especially on the east coast of China, more and more workers have chosen to leave their hometowns and go out to earn money.

Therefore a very large number of people are employed from rural to urban areas, resulting in massive migration during the Spring Festival, which of course means heading back to their hometowns. The high-speed train is the most popular ways of transportation in China, which is a fast and convenient, and at a reasonable price. These migrant workers have become the major passengers in the festive season.

Reason 3: Holiday

There are two week-long national holiday periods in China, the Spring Festival and National Day (Oct. 1), during which many people choose to travel with families for pleasure or visit relatives and friends.

On the other hand, as the  winter holiday goes on during the Spring Festival, college students throughout the country go back to their hometowns in the same period.

Safety Issues

Transportation authorities are prepared for the Spring Festival travel rush, as hundreds of millions of Chinese return home or travel around the country, putting huge pressure on the transportation system.

Although China has one of the biggest rail networks in the world, it still cannot fully meet the traffic demands around the Chinese New Year. Because of this, safety issues gradually come into focus.

Scalped Tickets

Scalpers  (票贩子piào fàn zi or 黄牛 huáng niú, lit. "yellow bulls" in Chinese) is a common name for people who profit by specializing in selling tickets at a marked-up price.

Through special connections or by employing a large number of personnel to call and queue up, scalpers obtain many tickets at a time and then sell them at highly inflated prices, aggravating the gap between supply and demand of tickets during the Spring Festival. In addition, they even make counterfeit tickets by altering expired tickets.

In recent years, the Chinese government has noticed the increasingly intense problem of scalped tickets and taken extra steps to combat it. There's still a long way to go, however.

Real-Name System

With so many people desperate for a ticket, the market for scalpers has been huge around the Spring Festival. To curb this illegal behavior, train tickets were upgraded in late 2009 to accommodate QR codes on tickets, thus enabling personal information to be stored. The QR code would link the ticket with its legal purchaser, paving the way for a real-name system. 

Starting with that, a real-name ticket purchasing system has been implemented since 2010 , which requires passengers to present a valid ID when purchasing a train ticket and then to show the same ID when checking in for a train.

In some ways, the real-name system plays a role in combating the illegal re-sale of tickets during the spring rush, and it has at least taken some of the misery out of the travel period.

How to Buy Train Tickets in China?

In an effort to allay the high demand for tickets, the Chinese government has implemented different railway booking methods – requiring valid IDs of course.

• Booking offices
• An online ticket-booking system since 2011

Feel free to contact us for help.

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This photo taken on January 27, 2023 shows a view of the waiting hall at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in East China's Shanghai. Photo: Xinhua

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• Spring Festival travel rush sees 34.74 mln trips on first day
• Some 34.74 million passenger trips were made Saturday, the first day of the 2023 Spring Festival travel rush, new data showed.

The figure was 38.9 percent higher than the same period of 2022, according to a work group on the travel rush under the State Council.

Some 6.02 million train trips and 27.35 million road trips were made Saturday, up 18.4 percent and 46.9 percent, respectively, from last year.

Saturday also saw a 24.9-percent increase in air passenger trips and a 7.4-percent hike in waterway trips.

The Spring Festival travel rush, also known as "chunyun," will last from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year, during which many Chinese people will travel to reunite with their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 22 this year. 

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China Kicks off Lunar New Year Travel Rush, Expects Record 9 Billion Trips

FILE PHOTO: Passengers wait to enter a subway outside Beijing Railway Station, after arriving by train during the Chinese Lunar New Year travel rush as the annual Spring Festival holidays ended in Beijing, China February 11, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Friday kicked off its busiest annual period of mass migration with a record 9 billion domestic trips expected to be made during a 40-day travel rush around the Lunar New Year holidays, state media predicted.

That would be nearly double the 4.7 billion trips made during the so-called Spring Festival travel rush in 2023 when ultra-strict COVID-19 restrictions were abolished.

Millions of people will travel back to their home towns to reunite with families for the Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 10 this year, in the world's largest mass migration each year.

About 80% of the 9 billion trips will be self-driving road trips, also a record, with the rest by rail, air, and water, Chinese state television CCTV reported.

Nearly 11 million train trips, the main mode of transportation in China, are expected on Friday. A total of 480 million trips will be made nationwide during the 40-day period, a 38% jump from 2023 and up 17% from 2019 before the pandemic.

Both railway travel and air travel skyrocketed on the first day of this year's rush. Passengers struggled to get train tickets, even though China is home to the world's largest high-speed network.

Miranda Guo, a 25-year-old cartoonist from a Hangzhou-based Chinese technology firm, was lucky to have secured a seat on a bullet train to Jinan. But that was only after forking out an additional 60 yuan, 13% of the ticket price, on an "accelerator package" offered by third-party booking apps.

"I think it's hard to buy a ticket this year, with almost all my colleagues failing to get tickets. Many of them are still on waiting lists," Guo said.

Air passenger trips are estimated to reach 2 million on Friday, CCTV reported. During this year's travel rush, the number of trips made by air are expected to surge to 80 million, per China's aviation regulator, up 9.8% from 2019.

Airports in China's biggest cities Beijing and Shanghai will brace for heavy crowds.

Shanghai's two airports Pudong and Hongqiao expect passenger traffic to surge 57.6% on year in the 40-day period while Beijing's airports will see a more than 60% jump.

Overseas travel will also rise during the travel peak.

China's aviation authorities have arranged more than 2,500 additional international flights to Asian destinations including Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea.

Additional railway and flights are also arranged for popular domestic tourism cities including Harbin in northeast China and Sanya, a popular tropical destination in the south.

(Reporting by Albee Zhang, Qiaoyi Li and Ryan Woo; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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• INSTITUTIONS

BEIJING, Jan. 10 -- China is on track for a bumper travel season, with travel authorities and tourism industry players expecting record-breaking journey numbers during the upcoming Spring Festival, adding new steam to the country's economic recovery.

The Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 10 this year, is China's biggest festival and a day for family reunions. It will serve as an important window for observing vitality and consumer confidence levels in the world's second-largest economy.

With record demand for travel, this year's Spring Festival holiday is poised to become the most vibrant and prosperous in recent years, experts said.

NEW RECORDS

An estimated 80 million passenger trips, a record high, are likely to be handled by China's civil aviation sector during this year's Spring Festival travel rush, which starts on Jan. 26 and ends on March 5, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

This figure represents a 44.9-percent surge compared with the same period of 2023 and is an increase of 9.8 percent from the level recorded during the Spring Festival travel rush in 2019.

To handle the spike in air travel passenger levels, the country's airlines have planned to add over 2,500 flights during the 40-day period, taking into consideration the likely demand for trips to popular destinations including Southeast Asian countries, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other neighboring regions, said Liang Nan, a CAAC official.

Liang said the CAAC has urged airlines to intensify efforts to increase international flights, especially those to neighboring regions and countries, and ensure safe operation during the Spring Festival travel surge.

The 2024 Spring Festival is likely to elevate the tourism market to a higher peak, judging from the online booking situation, said Qi Chunguang, vice president of Tuniu, a Chinese online travel services provider.

Qi said some of the company's tourism products designed for the Spring Festival were sold out much earlier than in previous years, with the list including trips to popular destinations in northern European countries.

Concerning domestic travel, he said trips to the country's northeastern regions have become so popular that local tourism reception capacity there has proved almost saturated in recent times. "Such a situation never happened before," he said.

SOLID START

The eight-day Spring Festival holiday, which starts on Feb. 10, is the first major holiday after the New Year holiday, which produced a travel boom in China's culture and tourism market, ensuring a solid start for China's economic recovery efforts in 2024.

During the three-day New Year holiday that ended on Jan. 1, a total of 135 million domestic tourist trips were made, up 155.3 percent year on year, according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

The total revenue of the country's tourism market surpassed 79.73 billion yuan (about 11.22 billion U.S. dollars) over the course of these three days, tripling that of the same holiday period last year and increasing 5.6 percent compared with 2019.

China recorded 5.18 million inbound and outbound trips during the three days, a 4.7-fold increase compared with the figure for the same period a year earlier and returning to the 2019 level, according to the National Immigration Administration.

Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, said 2023 saw China's domestic tourism market recovering rapidly, while in 2024 it will enter a new stage of prosperity.

Dai predicted that total domestic travel will exceed 6 billion visits in 2024 and that domestic tourism revenue is likely to surpass 6 trillion yuan.

He expected the country's inbound and outbound trips to exceed 264 million visits this year, generating combined tourism revenue of 107 billion U.S. dollars.

Qi Chunguang, meanwhile, said China's steady economic recovery in 2024, along with increasing international flights and adjustment of visa policies, will lead to a surge in outbound trips.

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China Spring Festival travel rush boosts economic recovery

Xinhua | Updated: 2023-01-31 22:31

BEIJING - With most of the COVID-19 restrictions lifted in China and the infection peak now passed, the hustle and bustle of Spring Festival has returned and the world's second-largest economy is poised for economic recovery.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese people joined the Spring Festival travel rush around the nation's most important traditional holiday, reuniting with relatives in their hometowns or taking long-awaited vacations.

The increase in travel this year has brought opportunities for huge holiday and tourism spending, giving a strong boost to the country's economic recovery.

HEAVY TRAFFIC

During the Spring Festival holiday alone, which ran from Jan 21 to 27, 50.17 million people traveled by train, up 57 percent year-on-year, and recovering to 83.1 percent of the level in 2019, according to the National Railway Administration.

Meanwhile, 9 million passengers traveled by air, surging 79.8 percent year-on-year, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

In parts of the country, the traffic has even exceeded pre-pandemic levels. The Spring Festival holiday this year is the first week-long holiday after the country optimized its anti-virus response, and the enthusiasm for travel was strong.

In East China's Jiangsu province, the flow of highway traffic amounted to 3.41 million vehicles on Friday, a new daily record for the Spring Festival holidays.

In Southwest China's Sichuan province, highway traffic and travel by train and air have all returned to or exceeded pre-pandemic levels. The highways saw a daily average of 3.84 million vehicles during the seven-day period, up 30 percent from the level in 2019.

China Railway Chengdu Bureau Group Co Ltd, which operates railways in Sichuan and several neighboring regions, transported 6.45 million passengers, an increase of over 197,000 from the same period of 2019. Airports in Chengdu, the provincial capital, handled 1.17 million passengers, returning to the level in 2019.

TOURISM RECOVERY

A huge number of people took long-awaited vacations during the holiday, leading to a strong recovery and boosting further confidence in the tourism sector.

Some 308 million domestic tourism trips were made in the period, up 23.1 percent from the same period last year and recovering to 88.6 percent of the figure for the same holiday in 2019, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Consumption is returning to the normal growth track faster than expected, said Wang Yun, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research.

During the holiday, authorities in Jiangsu offered tourism consumption coupons, and free entrance and public transport, to aid the recovery. The province received over 41.3 million domestic tourists, 21 percent higher than the level in 2019, and tourism revenue was 0.6 percent higher than the level in 2019.

"During the holiday, the average occupancy rate of our guesthouses was close to 90 percent," said Liu Guang, general manager of a countryside tourism resort in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province.

"Tourism is recovering, the holiday hustle and bustle is back and our business is getting better," said Xu Bao, who was busy serving customers in a coffee shop at a scenic site in downtown Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.

During the holiday, tourists swarmed into Weizhou Island, the youngest volcanic island in China and a popular tourist destination, located in the coastal city of Beihai, South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Yang Xiaojun flew to Beihai with family and friends for a six-day vacation. "Due to the epidemic, we usually took short-distance self-driving tours in our home province of Hunan during the Spring Festival holidays in the past couple of years," said Yang. "We decided to travel a little farther this year."

Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, said that travel demand has bounced back, with family visits and holiday travel during the Spring Festival holiday of 2023, kicking off a rosy start and sustained recovery of the tourism sector.

Authorities and enterprises in the booming Jiangsu Province have also joined the travel rush, heading to inland provinces for recruitment and sending buses to ferry workers back.

Authorities in the city of Changzhou have traveled to Sichuan and Shaanxi to recruit workers for local enterprises. The manufacturing hub of Kunshan sent charter buses to ferry migrant workers back, to speed up industrial production after the holiday. The city of Wuxi even arranged a charter plane to transport 120 migrants back from Yunnan province on Friday.

"The chartered flight has helped alleviate our labor shortage," said Zhu Rende, general manager of Wuxi Jingyuntong Technology Co Ltd. "Orders for our photovoltaic products have grown steadily. We maintained production during the holiday, and workers took turns returning to their hometowns."

A survey of nearly 7,000 major enterprises showed a strong desire to increase payrolls this year amid the economic recovery, said Zhang Hongwei, deputy director of the Jiangsu provincial department of human resources and social security.

Han Jian, a professor at Nanjing University's business school, said the adjustment of China's epidemic control policy has created greater space for local economies, and many regions are quickly rolling out measures to stabilize growth.

"From the consumption boom around the Spring Festival this year, we can see that the potential of China's consumer market is still huge, and the economy is getting off to a good start," said Han.

Liu Jing, chief economist for Greater China at HSBC, said the economic rebound is a key theme for China in 2023, and China's economy will rebound strongly from the second quarter, with growth of 5 percent forecast this year.

Zhu Haibin, chief China economist at JP Morgan, is also optimistic. "We see both production and consumption activities on track to recover further. It is likely that the economic recovery could be front-loaded compared to our baseline forecast," wrote Zhu.

A glimpse of Spring Festival travel rush across China

Editor: huaxia

2023-01-07 15:03:00

Passengers prepare to board a train in Shenzhen North railway station in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Mao Siqian)

Trains are pictured at Shenzhen North railway station in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Mao Siqian)

A worker examines a train at a maintenance base in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Jan. 6, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Wu Zhizun)

Passengers are seen in Shenzhen North railway station in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Mao Siqian)

This aerial photo shows bullet trains at a maintenance base in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Wu Zhizun)

This stitched panoramic aerial photo shows bullet trains in a maintenance base in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Wu Zhizun)

Passengers prepare to board a train in Hefei South railway station in Hefei, central China's Anhui Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Zhou Mu)

This photo shows bullet trains in a maintenance base in Guiyang, capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province, Jan. 6, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Passengers are seen in Beijing West railway station in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

This aerial photo shows bullet trains in a maintenance base in Guiyang, capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province, Jan. 6, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

This aerial photo shows bullet trains at a maintenance base in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Chen Sihan)

Passengers wait for train in Tianjin West railway station in north China's Tianjin, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Li Ran)

Passengers are seen on a bullet train in Beijing West railway station in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

This aerial photo shows bullet trains at a maintenance base in Fuzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Zhou Yi)

Passengers wait for train in Urumqi railway station in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush this year, will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

Passengers pose for photos in the waiting hall at Suzhou Railway Station in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year,. (Xinhua/Li Bo)

Passengers line up to enter Suzhou Railway Station in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year,. (Xinhua/Li Bo)

Passengers are pictured in the waiting hall at Harbin Railway Station in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year,. (Xinhua/Wang Jianwei)

Passengers are pictured in Chengdu east railway station in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year,. (Xinhua/Wang Xi)

Passengers are pictured on the platform in Guiyang north railway station in Guiyang, capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year,. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

People wave goodbye at Wuhan railway station in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year,. (Xinhua/Wu Zhizun)

A train crew member decorates the carriage of a train at Wuhan Railway Station in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year,. (Xinhua/Wu Zhizun)

Passengers are pictured in Kunming Railway Station in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year,. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

A passenger sits in a bullet train in Xi'an Railway Station in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The Spring Festival travel rush will continue for 40 days from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year,. (Xinhua/Li Yibo)

Passengers queue for security check at Haikou Meilan International Airport in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu)

Passengers are seen at Jinan West Railway Station in Jinan, east China's Shandong Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Xu Suhui)

Passengers prepare to board a train at Shenzhen North Railway Station in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)

Passengers are seen at Zhengzhou East Railway Station in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Li An)

Passengers go through automatic ticket gates at Beijing West Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Ren Chao)

Passengers get off a train at Xi'an Railway Station in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Photo by Zou Jingyi/Xinhua)

Passengers are seen at Shenzhen North Railway Station in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)

Passengers are seen at Guangzhou South Railway Station in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Lu Hanxin)

Passengers are seen at Beijing West Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Ren Chao)

Passengers go through automatic ticket gates at Beijing South Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

Passengers and stewards pose for a photo at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in east China's Shanghai, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Wang Xiang)

Passengers queue to board a train at Beijing Fengtai Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

A passenger checks in at Haikou Meilan International Airport in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu)

A passenger adjusts the face mask of a child at Zhengzhou East Railway Station in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, Jan. 7, 2023. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush in China kicked off Saturday. (Xinhua/Li An)

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[Photo via The Beijing News]

The annual Spring Festival travel rush in China starts on Jan. 7 this year. Train No. G6701, which left Beijing West Railway Station for Handan East Station at 5:34 a.m., marked the start of this year's Spring Festival travel rush on the railways. Over the course of the 40-day travel season, millions of Chinese people are expected to travel home to reunite with their families. 

A guide to Moscow’s summer festivals

May 26, 2018 • 4 min read

People attend open-air concert during Usadba Jazz festival at the Archangelskoye Estate @ Anton Gvozdikov / Shutterstock

Believe it or not, in summer Moscow usually gets rather hot. It’s also the season when the city is fully awake, with more events happening than at any other time of the year. Almost every weekend a new market, exhibition or festival takes place, making it pretty hard to choose which one to attend.

Of course, the highlight of this summer in the Russian capital will be the celebration of football, as Moscow gets ready to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup (from 14 June to 15 July) along with 10 other cities across the country. Nevertheless, over the years some big annual events have become an integral – and fun – part of Moscow’s summer culture. Here are our top picks.

Usadba Jazz at Arkhangelskoe

This iconic open-air jazz festival has been taking place in Moscow for over a decade, making it one of the city’s favourite outdoor events. The location is always the same – the gorgeous 19th-century  Arkhangelskoe Estate and its surroundings. Apart from some great classical and modern jazz, blues, funk, soul and world music, there’s a new theme each year: in 2017 it was ecology, introducing some local eco-designers and culinary artists to jazz-loving Muscovites.

Dates: 2–3 June 2018

Red Square Book Fest

This year Moscow’s annual book festival will be taking over the historic Red Square for the fourth time. The event celebrates the reading culture, introduces the best local publishing houses, and allows visitors to purchase books, attend masterclasses and listen to some well-known modern Russian writers. The program covers several themes, including fiction, non-fiction, ebooks, children’s and educational literature, antique and secondhand books, as well as Russian regions.  Famous Russian museums present their publishing projects and catalogues, and there are live concerts and performances throughout the festival.

Dates: 3–6 June 2018

Moscow Flower Show

Who knew Moscow could be a rose? Last year a new sort of rose was created just to celebrate the 870th anniversary of the Russian capital. This international garden festival is a paradise for the admirers of landscape design and all things green and blooming. Both recognised and up-and-coming landscape designers present their works and compete for the main prize, awarded by an international jury. And visitors get a chance to release their inner flower child.

Dates: 29 June–8 July 2018

Taste of Moscow

This international food festival   has been around for a long time, covering 19 cities of the world and gaining huge popularity in Moscow. The city’s 30 best restaurants will take part in the program this year, offering visitors their most renowned dishes and products. You can treat yourself to delicacies from one of the exclusive menus created specifically for the festival, attend degustations or learn how to cook from a professional chef. The interactive program will also include concerts, masterclasses, pop-up performances and children’s activities.

Dates: 26–29 July 2018

Much loved by both locals and visitors to the city, the annual Park Live rock festival has achieved international status in its six years of existence, treating the fans with performances from world-famous and local rock stars. Hosting Muse in 2015 has been the highlight in the festival’s history, while Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lana Del Rey, Limp Bizkit and System of a Down have also headlined. In 2018 revellers will have a chance to see David Guetta, Gorillaz and Massive Attack at the vibrant Gorky Park  in the heart of the city.

Dates: 27–29 July 2018

Afisha Picnic

Moscow’s biggest open-air festival is a summer rave for food and music lovers. Organized by Afisha magazine, it’s been expanding year on year, eventually moving from concert halls and stadiums to the vast Kolomenskoe Museum-Reserve , a former royal estate and a Unesco World Heritage Site by the Moscow River. The organisers make sure there’s lots going on, so apart from multiple music stages you can find food stalls with local products, a designers’ market, gaming and lecture areas – all with a strict no-alcohol policy.

Dates: 4 August 2018

The Times and Epochs re-enactment of a battle between Polish and Ruthenian archers © Degtyaryov Andrey / Shutterstock

Times and Epochs

The ultimate historical festival in Russia expands with each passing year, taking over Moscow parks, recreational areas and some of the main streets. It brings together the best from the world of historical re-enactment, boasting more than 6000 geeky participants in 2017 (many of them from abroad). Soldiers, merchants, craftsmen, musicians all walk the streets in traditional costumes, performing or teaching the arts, crafts and games of the past. Best of all, the festival is focused on getting the audience involved in the lifestyles of different eras, from the Stone Age to the Soviet times.

Dates: 10–22 August 2018

Moscow City Day

Moscow turned 870 in 2017, and to celebrate the occasion, the city administration decided to host a 10-day festival under the slogan ‘Moscow is a city where history is being made’. With Russian avant-garde the main theme, dozens of events, lectures, performances and street markets celebrated the history of the capital as well as its prominent inhabitants. Plenty of music, food and modern art is always to be expected on the city streets during this time. Don’t miss the magnificent fireworks.

Dates: 1–10 September 2018

Russia Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945

In May 9th Russia celebrate the day of victory of Soviet troops over Nazi Germany. On this day, parades, commemorative events, and festive fireworks are held solemnly throughout the country. The main military parade of the country takes place in Moscow on Red Square. Throughout the city, at special concert venues, art groups perform, songs of the war years are heard everywhere. People dance, relax. Many older people cry, remembering the horror of years gone by.

Night of museums

Museum Night is an annual project that will take place in Moscow 15 times. Most of the city’s cultural institutions traditionally take part in it. Most of the city’s museums and exhibitions are free to visit. In parks, country estates, thematic performances and entertainment cultural events are held. About 200 museums, exhibition halls and art spaces take part in the festival. Many sites prepare special projects on the topic for visitors.

Christmas Festival

This is the most favourite festival of Muscovites and guests of the city. Interesting events take place at 80 venues throughout the city. Numerous ice rinks, food zones, hockey courts, slides, a children’s snowboard park are open. Every day, in special chalets around the city, puppet shows and fairy tales are read. Concerts and master classes await visitors, where you can try yourself in Gzhel painting, clay modelling, decoupage. You can make jewellery, toys and gifts to loved ones, as well as send a letter to Santa Claus. On Red Square, everyone is interested in not only skating on the rink themselves, but also enjoying the colourful ice show from the famous Russian skaters.

Festival “Moscow Maslenitsa”

One of the brightest, longest events in Russia, dedicated to the seeing off of winter and the meeting of spring. Everyone will be able to learn how to cook pancakes, attend a lot of creative and craft workshops. Take part in traditional Shrovetide fun. Build a huge stuffed animal from straw and burn it, ride on crusts, take part in a masquerade parade. At numerous venues it will be possible to see street performances and performances by the best vocal ensembles and folk artists.

New Year on Red Square

The festive concert begins at 20.00. Then everyone lights the New Year tree together. At midnight, guests will be surprised by festive fireworks. Tickets are on sale in advance at the expected symbolic price of 2,025 rubles.

International exhibition NEFTEGAZ-2022

Neftegaz (Oil and gas exhibition) is the largest exhibition in Russia, which is one of the ten most significant in the industry. Lots of business meetings. Sighning of contracts. Experience exchange. The exhibition is attended by over 500 companies from around the world.

Moscow International Film Festival

The film festival has been held since 1935. Second oldest after the Venice Film Festival. Moscow International Film Festival is one of the most important events in the film industry. This is not only an influential professional venue, but also an interesting event for muscovites and guest of the city.

Easter Gift Festival

Easter festival is one of the most striking and major events of the city in April. Guests and residents of the city will be able to learn about the traditions of Easter, taste various options for Easter cakes, try other holiday treats. And also take part in charity events.

The solemn ceremony of the changing of the guard at the walls of the Moscow Kremlin

The ceremony is held every on the Cathedral Square of the Kremlin. This is a colourful sight introducing Russian military traditions. Every year, the organizers introduce new elements into the program, preserving the classic part. To enter the territory of the Kremlin, an entrance ticket is required.

Fish Week festival

This year the festival will be held in Moscow for the sixth time. Everyone can taste a variety of seafood dishes, as well as purchase fish, shrimp, caviar «take away”. Every day, gastronomic shows and various master classes for both adults and children will be held at the festival venues.

A cappella Moscow Spring international festival

Bright and talented performers and bands from different countries come to Moscow to demonstrate all their singing a cappella skills. The show takes place at different open-air scenes in the center of Moscow. Everyone can visit any city concerts, creative workshops, music, theatre performances.

Horse racing events

In Moscow, the racing season lasts from May to September. Purebred racehorse competitions are held at the Central Moscow Hippodrome. Throughout the entire period, horses demonstrate all their power, beauty and strength. By tradition, in the spring a big holiday is held, dedicated to the opening of the race.

Day of Russia

On this day, all cities of the country host ceremonies, entertainment programs, holiday concerts with the participation of popular performers. Everyone can participate in sports and youth flash mobs, visit museums and improvised fairs. And the culmination of the holiday will be a big fireworks.

Flower Jam Festival

Within the framework of the festival, the international competition of urban landscape design of the same name takes place. The task of the contestants is to come up with gardens, compositions that will beneficially affect the emotional and physical condition of the city residents. Across the city will appear compositions of fresh flowers. The city is blooming.

International Festival "Russian Cuisine"

This year the festival of Russian cuisine will be held for the forth time. Guests will be able to taste a wide palette of dishes from multinational Russia. Appreciate the skills of the best chefs in Russia. Taste ready-made dishes according to old Russian recipes. The largest outdoor food court in Moscow will open. Performances of famous pop singers and folk artists will complement the holiday atmosphere.

International Fireworks Festival Rostec

The largest festival of pyrotechnic art in Russia. The strongest pyrotechnics from different countries gather to show the audience all their highest skills and compete for the title of best. A diverse program is provided for guests and residents of the city: creative and sporting events, thematic spaces, quests and games, performances by musical groups and much more.

International Military Music Festival Spasskaya Tower

This holiday festival takes place on Red Square. This is one of the most ambitious and vibrant events of the year. Spectators are waiting for the parade of military bands, musical groups from around the world. Music from classical to pop sounds in the city center. Military bands from many countries demonstrate entire dance performances, performances with weapons. Colorful laser and pyrotechnic shows decorate this event. The grand fireworks on the closing day are unforgettable.

Moscow City day

Bright, large-scale and spectacular holiday. In 2022, Muscovites will celebrate the 875th anniversary of their city. Moscow greets this day on a grand scale. The whole city is seething. At various venues there are concerts and live music. Sports competitions for families, fairs for all are held. Everywhere – an atmosphere of joy and emancipation.

Moscow Balloon Festival

The festival will be held at the Expocentre on Krasnaya Presnya. This is the largest festival in Europe in terms of the number of participants, guests and sponsors. The best professional graphic designers from all over the world compete here. The program includes: an air show, master classes, an exhibition of sculptures from balloons, as well as exciting seminars from professional aero designers.

XI Moscow International Festival Circle of Light

One of the largest light festivals in the world. Grand multimedia shows await guests and residents: 3D mapping, pyrotechnic effects using high-altitude fountains, fire flames, laser projections. Many light installations of fireworks with musical accompaniment.

XVIII Moscow Gastronomic Festival

Hundreds of restaurants in Moscow present a signature tasting menu. It offers new tastes, unusual food combinations, bold culinary experiments. Special brunches take place all month. The city has a lot of thematic entertainment, promotions from the partners of the festival. At the end of the festival, a magnificent ball is held at which members of the international jury will choose the winner.

National Unity Day of Russia

In Moscow, the program of this general public holiday is especially solemn and vibrant. A variety of patriotic events, rallies, parades are held. In the evening, festive concerts of pop stars and musical groups will take place.

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China's Spring Festival travel rush ends with recovering transport figures

BEIJING -- The Spring Festival travel rush, which began on Jan 7 this year, ended on Wednesday, with passenger traffic continuing to recover.

During the 40-day travel rush, more than 1.5 billion trips took place by rail, highway, water, and civil aviation, official data showed.

The country's railway passenger flow continued to rebound. Statistics showed that since Feb. 1, an average of more than 9 million passenger trips were made every day, and railway passenger transport has recovered to 90 percent of the figure for the 2019 corresponding travel rush period.

Road travel, as the first choice for short and medium-distance travel, was also favored during this year's travel rush.

Data from ride-hailing company Didi showed that from Jan 7 to Feb 14, Didi's ride-hailing and taxi orders continued to increase and recovered to more than 90 percent of the number for the same period of 2019.

The civil aviation sector also received more passengers during the Spring Festival holiday. In south China's Hainan Province, the Sanya civil aviation authority reported a new high of 3,024 flights in the week-long holiday, an increase of 5.8 percent over the same holiday period in 2019.

"China's railways, roads, waterways, and civil aviation have maintained stable operation, with sufficient transport capacity, orderly services, strong emergency support, and a generally secure environment," said Zhou Min, an official with the Ministry of Transport.

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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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