Jewel Envy

Dear Readers,

We continue with our short series of trips around art and the great and incredible mind of the human being.

From Paris where we were last week, we are flying to Moscow, Russia.

We are going underground to give a glance to the Moscow's Metro.

Moscow’s metro system is one of the busiest in the world and, at 190 miles (305kms) long with 185 stations, it’s also one of the largest. The stations aren’t just transit hubs – they’re a sort of free public art exhibit, and one that tells the history of the city in their design and decoration. The stations were designed so lavishly in the hopes that their beauty would inspire workers on their way to dreary jobs under Soviet rule. These ornate stations eventually became known as “the palaces of the people” for their extravagant architecture. Later, new stations were designed in a slightly more understated way, their appearance reflecting a more austere time in the city’s history. (wikipedia)

With help from David Burdeny, Vancouver-based photographer, we will be able to see the gloriously vaulted halls of Moscow's Metro Stations.

As much you make your way through the system, the history of the city manifests itself before your eyes. The stations range in design, from palatial baroque marble and granite structures to modern iron and glass, revealing the aesthetics ideals, hopes and failures of communist Russia.

All jewelers and designers deal with patters, forms, colors, an every one of us brings our passions through our work.
This extraordinary places give inspiration to me, and over the years my head and my spirit are full with the most extraordinary richest of all, creativity, I  keep all this memories in my heart up today, and they enrich my work and my life every day.

Between the many incredible beautiful stations, I have selected only a few and it's very difficult to choose, but these will show you some of the most incredible underground places on earth.

Arbatskaya Station, it was designed by Leonid Polyakov, Valentin Pelevin and Yury Zenkevich. Since it was meant to serve as a bomb shelter as well as a Metro station, Arbatskaya is both large (the 250-m platform is the second-longest in Moscow) and deep (41 m underground). The main tunnel is elliptical in cross-section, an unusual departure from the standard circular design. The station features low, square pylons faced with red marble and a high vaulted ceiling elaborately decorated with ornamental brackets, floral reliefs, and chandeliers. The walls are covered with cream-colored ceramic tile. (Wikipedia)

Elektrozavodskaya Station. Named after the electric light bulb factory nearby, the preliminary layout included Schuko's idea of making the ceiling covered with six rows of circular incandescent inset lamps (of which there were 318 in total). However the outbreak of World War II halted all works until 1943 when construction resumed.

The station's legacy was that it serves as a bridge between the pre-war Art Deco-influenced Stalinist architecture as seen on the second stage stations and their post-war counterparts on the Koltsevaya Line. Both Genrikh and Rozhin were awarded the Stalin Prize in 1946 for their work.

Kievskaya Station feature low squares pylons faced with white marble and surmounted by large mosaics by A.V. Both the mosaics and the arches between the pylons are edged with elaborate gold-colored trim. At the end of the plataform is a portrait of Vladimir Lenin.(Wikipedia)

You can open at home in this cold and shiny Sunday many more links of this beautiful metro's stations at the Moscow's metro. Let your imagination fly, the world is incredible and amazing.

Have a nice Sunday.

Helena