How it all began

The Moscow Metrostroy is on the verge of a big anniversary - 90 years since its foundation. Great preparations are underway for this grand date. There are many festive events, exhibitions and various surprises ahead. A museum has already been opened in the Administration building. Let us remember how one of the largest and most significant organizations in the capital was born.

Caisson apparatus. Sokolniki district, first half of the 1930s

Discussions about the need to build a metro in Moscow have been going on since the end of the 19th century. Already in those days there were problems with movement in the city. Ground transport was not enough to meet the needs of the capital's residents. Projects and metro schemes were developed, but it never came to fruition. The problem reached its apogee by the early 30s of the 20th century, when the city center with a population of more than four million periodically stopped due to traffic jams.

On June 15, 1931, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was held in Moscow, dedicated to the reconstruction and further development of the country’s cities. It was there that the final decision was made on the construction of the Moscow Metro. Preparatory work had to begin immediately in order to begin construction of the metro in 1932.

This is how Metrostroy was born. The leader of the Moscow party organization of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Bolshevik Lazar Kaganovich, was appointed responsible for the construction. And on August 5, 1931, the Politburo approved Pavel Rottert as the first head of Metrostroy. He supervised the construction of the DneproGES, a hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper River. At first I combined both positions.

First of all, Rottert prepared a draft Regulation on Metrostroy, which was approved by the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR on September 13, 1931, and on October 2, the regulation was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and on October 13, 1931, a version of the Regulation was approved, amended by the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. On November 13, 1931, the Council of Labor and Defense assigned the object the rank of “shock construction”.

The backbone of Metrostroy was made up of railway engineers. Of course, there were no specialists in metro construction in the country at that time. Foreign experience was used. Metro construction workers learned through practice and grew professionally along with the organization.

The first mine was founded on an experimental site on Rusakovskaya Street, near house No. 13a (not far from the future Krasnoselskaya station) in November 1931. The management of the new organization was located in house No. 5 on Tverskaya Street, in the building of the Loskutnaya Hotel. Metrostroy was based here from 1932 to 1936. A vertical pit was built next to the building, through which the construction of the Okhotny Ryad metro station and tunnels to the Lubyanka station was carried out.