For a long time now we have been meeting young men and girls in overalls, rubber boots and wide-brimmed miners' hats, covered with dry clay and earth. They are the builders of the Metro, Moscow's underground railway. They run, very businesslike, from shaft to shaft, or, their shift over, stroll unhurriedly down the middle of the street. And when you look at them you notice not their stained baggy overalls, but their faces. And striking faces they are, glowing, in spite of fatigue, with pride and joy.
People in such overalls attracted universal respect and interest: the first builders of the Metro—no joke that! Probably, not only in Moscow but in Aspen Woods, too, and in faraway Sitkino, people searched the papers to see how the Metro was getting on. And then, in the spring of 1935, came the memorable day when we learnt that the Metro was ready!
"Mama, our Young Pioneer group will be going to see the Metro on Sunday!" Zoya announced. "Will you come with us?"
On Sunday morning I glanced out of the window: rain pouring down in torrents. I was sure that they would postpone the excursion to the Metro, but the children were already out of bed and hurriedly getting ready. It was clear that they would not even think of giving up the excursion.
"But what about the weather?"
"Do you call that rain?" cried Shura recklessly. "It'll be over before we're out of the house."
Many children had already gathered at the tram stop. As far as I could see, the rain even added to their enjoyment. They were laughing and shouting, and they greeted us with cheerful cries.
Then we all got into the tram, and after a crowded and noisy journey, arrived at Okhotny Ryad.
When they stepped onto the marble floor of the vestibule the children at once fell silent. Here, to be sine, there was no time for talk—there was so much to look at!
Sedately, we descend the broad steps and pause in speechless wonder: this is where the real marvels begin! Another second—and Zoya, Shura and I are first to step onto the corrugated ribbon which runs downwards. Silently and smoothly it carries us down, down, down. Past us slide the black rails, slightly springy to the touch. And beyond them, beyond the smooth, shiny barrier, like a staircase suddenly come to life, runs the second escalator. But instead of going down, it climbs upwards, towards us. There are many people going up and they are all smiling. One waves his hand to us, another shouts something, but we hardly notice them, so absorbed are we in our journey.
And then there is firm ground again under our feet. How beautiful it is all round! Up there, above, it is raining cats and dogs, while here.
Once I heard about an old storyteller. All her life she had lived in her native village, and then they brought her to Moscow where she saw trams, cars, airplanes. The people with her were sure that all this would astound her. But no, she took everything in her stride. For years she had dreamed of magic carpets and mile-stride boots, and what she saw in Moscow was for her a familiar fairy tale come true.
Something similar happened to the children in the Metro. Delight but nothing akin to surprise was plainly written on their faces, just as if they had at last entered the gates of the fairyland they knew so well.
We go out onto the platform, and suddenly from one end, from out the dark tunnel comes a dull increasing roar, two fiery eyes appear…Another second—and the train, long light-coloured carriages with red band running along the lower edge of the broad plate-glass windows, stops gently at the platform. The doors are opened by an unseen hand, we get in, sit down, and off we go! And at what speed!
Shura glues himself to the window and counts the lights as they flash past. Then he turns round to me.
"Don't be afraid," he says, "there cannot be any crashes in the Metro. That's what they said in the Pionerskaga Pravda. They have autostops and traffic lights here called 'electric watchmen.'
A glance at Shura tells me that it is not only me he is reassuring.
That day we visited every single station. We got out everywhere, went up on all the escalators and then came down again. We looked and looked and could not feast our eyes enough: the neat little square tiles just like cells in a beehive on Dzerzhinsky Station, the huge underground palace of Komsomolskaya Station, its grey, gold and brown marble—it was just too wonderful to be true!
"Look, Mummy, they really have made red gates!" exclaimed Shura, pointing at the niches in the wall of Red Gates Station.
Zoya and I were quite overwhelmed by the light-filled columns of Palace of Soviets Station. At the top they seemed to melt into the ceiling, opening out like gigantic lilies. I had never thought that stone could seem so soft and give off so much light.
We had with us a round-faced, dark-eyed boy ("Pioneer leader of the first team," explained Zoya, who had noticed me listening to what he was saying). You felt at once that he was one of those lads who are interested in everything on earth, and remember everything they read word for word.
"There is marble here from all over the country," he told us. "This one is from the Crimea, and that from Karelia. And on Kirov Station the escalator is sixty-five metres long. Let's work out how long it takes to come down here!"
Straightaway he and Shura went up and down again.
"Let's count how many people come down in one go," suggested Shura.
They stood still for a minute, frowning with attention, their lips moving soundlessly.
"How many did you make it? One hundred and fifty? And I made it one hundred and eighty. Call it a hundred and seventy. Wow! Ten thousand people an hour! And if it were stationary? Wouldn't there be a crush! And do you know how much the British wanted for building an escalator?" went on the leader of the Pioneer team, all in one breath. "A million gold rubles in our money! But then we set to and did it ourselves, in our own plants. Do you know just what plants were working on it? The Moscow Vladimir Ilyich Works, the Kirov Works in Leningrad, as well as plants in Gorlovka, Kramatorsk…
We returned home towards evening almost dropping with exhaustion but greatly impressed, and for many days after we kept on talking about the underground wonderland.
It was not long before we got used to the Metro. One kept on hearing, "I'll go by Metro," "We'll meet at the Metro."
But, nevertheless, when I see the ruby gleam of the letter "M" in the evening shadows, I often recall the day when my children and I visited the Metro for the first time.
Next: Campfires in the Night