On June 23, the opening ceremony of the first museum of one of the oldest organizations in the country, the founder of metro construction in Russia, JSC Mosmetrostroy, took place. Over 89 years, the Moscow Metrostroy team has built 192 metro stations, including objects recognized as the country’s cultural heritage.
The exhibition space is located in the organization’s head office building on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. It was originally planned that the museum would start operating on May 1, but due to the coronavirus epidemic, the opening was postponed.
Permanent and thematic exhibitions will tell visitors about the history of the company, the construction of metro stations and the people who made a great contribution to this matter. Numerous documents, diagrams, photographs will display different periods of development of the capital's subway. The museum will be constantly modernized and replenish its collection: it will house interactive stands and panels. In the future, an open lecture hall with specialists from the organization will operate within the museum.
“The opening of the Mosmetrostroy Museum is just one of the bright events as part of the celebration of the company’s 90th anniversary, which will be celebrated next year. The plans include a whole series of events. The thematic exhibitions of the museum, in my opinion, will allow everyone to become more fully acquainted not only with the history of the company, but also in general to learn how the development of metro construction as a separate construction industry took place,” noted Sergei Zhukov, General Director of Mosmetrostroy JSC.
The first exhibition is dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Thousands of engineers, miners and foremen went to the front. The technical mindset of the metro builders and the ability to work in difficult conditions helped them successfully cross key water obstacles, mine enemy targets, and conduct reconnaissance in the most dangerous places. In the first months of the war, it was the metro builders who strengthened the approaches to Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Gorky, and Valdai, and carried out work in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. Many metro builders, students of the Metrostroy flying club, became the best fighters and attack aircraft of the Great Patriotic War. Fifty-three heroic metro builders were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and one - Hero of the Russian Federation.
The museum will be open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 15:00, except holidays. Free admission. Anyone will be able to visit the exhibition, subject to the necessary sanitary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection.