Metro Bombings

I first would like to thank all my friends and family for being so concerned about me on Monday. It really meant a lot knowing so many people were there to support me during such a sad and difficult time. I especially want to thank my parents and brother for reacting so calmly when I woke them up after midnight and for being so comforting in the days since.

Being about as big of a fan of the Moscow Metro as anyone living in and around the Moscow area, waking up to the news of the bombings in the morning was to say the least, extremely saddening. But what really hit close to home was where these suicide attacks toke place and how closely they were to me and my friends. What was most frightening at the time was knowing any friend or teacher who was traveling to or from my university must pass at least one of the two stations. Below is a map of the Moscow Metro system.



Next is a zoomed in portion of the south west portion of the map indicating where the the suicide bombers got on the train, where the attacks occurred, and where my station is. I put arrows and numbers by the most important stations regarding Mondays attack.



So what is very obvious is it was only the red line, also known as the Sokolnicheskaya Line, which was hit. This was the first ever metro line built in Moscow in 1935. The first arrow points to the station in the far south west corner called Юго-Западная (Yugo-Zapadnaya) which appropriately translates as south west. It is at this station where I get off to visit my History professor and my friend Yuri. It is also here that the suicide bombers got on the train. Once they got on here they moved towards downtown, passing the station for the Kremlin and eventually detonating the first bomb at number 2 on the map called Lubyanka. Ironically I always get the creeps in this station. Not because I felt like anything was ever wrong but just knowing the history of the area and what terrible things must have occurred there back in the 40's and 50's. Right above here is where the KGB main building is located. And I don't even want to know what may have occurred in there. It is here that the most people where killed and injured in Monday's attacks. I spent a good portion of last Friday afternoon here at a really cool bookstore called Biblio-Globus. In the picture is the FSB headquarters (formerly the KGB), and the rock is a memorial to the Gulag outside of Moscow.




Number 3 on the map shows where the second bomb at Park Kultury was detonated 30 minutes later. This station isn't symbolic for government purposes but for the famed "Gorky Park" and Modern Tretyakov Gallery which are located near by. This means they were definitely going for civilians in an all civilian area. This is an especially busy and crowded metro since it connects the Red line with the famous Brown line which circles the entire city.

Lastly on the map (number 4) is the metro station "Universitet" which is my station.

So after about 30 minutes after the second bombing occurred I received a text message saying not to use the metro because bombings had occurred. I instantly jumped on to my computer to see what was happening. Once I found out what and where, I immediately called my family at home. Since no one really knew what was happening, I still packed up and walked to class. But since the metro was shut down my teacher was unable to get through to the university. Once class was canceled we decided not to hang out in our rooms all day so we went to a local mall. This involved walking by Metro station Universitet. When we got there we saw many officers with large guns (looked like AK 47's or something of that sort) checking people for their identification and going through any bags. Also, the near by bus stop was packed with people. So many buses and trolleys were deployed to solve the huge traffic mess. Sadly, all this did was clog everything up more. Never have I seen 10 trolley buses in one line not moving at all. Since there was nothing to do and no where to go, we stayed in all day.

Tuesday was officially a day of mourning for the Russian people. That evening my roommate Sasha and I went down to pay our respects at each station. There were a ton of people gathered there laying flowers, praying and crying. This was the most quiet I'd ever seen a metro station.

These are some pictures of the memorial at Park Kultury:




And here are some pictures of the Memorial at Lubyanka:




The sign says: "In this place on March 29th, 2010 a terrorist attack occurred in the wagon of a metro, which resulted in the death of people. In this station memorial plaque will be installed."

All this being said, things are returning to normal extremely fast. I traveled around the ring line just to look at the beautiful stations today. The Moscow Metro is called the "Underground Palace". This was built by the people, for the people in a Soviet society and if anyone has an opportunity to visit Moscow or any Russian subway, I highly recommend that you check out their metro. Moscow's Metro is one of the biggest in the world and carries around 7 million people a day. This is more than both London's Underground and Paris's Metro combined.

Finally, here are some images I took of one the most beautiful metro stations on the ring line called "Komsomol'skaya". If you zoom in on the motifs you can see all the intricate tile work which was done, it's amazing.









This weekend is Saint Petersburg!!!
-Justin