Underground palaces

Kievskaya station (Koltsevaya line). Designed as a work of art with palatial stations, construction on the Moscow Metro began in 1932. It has 12 lines, 176 stations and carries an average of 7 million passengers every week day Photograph: Peter Moore

Karl Marx at the turnstiles, Okhotny Ryad station. One journey costs around 40 pence Photograph: Peter Moore

Top brass: a bust of Lenin overlooks the commuters at Komsomolskaya station Photograph: Peter Moore

The Guardian's architecture critic Jonathan Glancey has described the metro as 'richer than any babushka's plum cake' - this despite the iron bear hug of Stalin's school of Socialist Realism. The richness of the materials - brass and marble - in the corridors at Kurskaya station, for example, are more in keeping with an art museum than a metro station Photograph: Peter Moore

An ornate staircase with stained glass detail at Novoslobodskaya station Photograph: Peter Moore

Even the posters look like works of art Photograph: Peter Moore

At Kievskaya station, with its ornate mosaics, you could be forgiven for thinking you are in an art gallery Photograph: Peter Moore

The metro opens from around 5.30am and closes at 1am Photograph: Peter Moore

Trains run every 90 seconds on most lines Photograph: Peter Moore

Elaborate Socialist Realist mosaics... Photograph: Peter Moore

Stained glass arches... Photograph: Peter Moore

... and marble. It comes as no surprise to learn that Moscow Metro stations have been dubbed the people's palaces Photograph: Peter Moore