Lyublinsko-Dmitrovskaya line

In the early 1980s, the Moscow development plan put forward several ideas about solving the build-up that came as a result of the radial-ring alignment which has determined the development of the Moscow Metro since the mid-1950s. In the previous programme the radial lines, with an ever-increasing build-up of passengers, were forced to use the central transfer points and those on the ring, severely overcrowding the system.

In attempt to solve this problem, the future Lyublinskaya line was designed so that some of its transfer points would be outside the Koltsevaya line. This meant it would begin at the ring before extending south to the Kursky Rail Terminal, Perovsky, and Zhdanovsky. The ultimate goal of the line was to then bring the metro to the new developing districts of Maryino and Lyublino in the south-east of Moscow.

The initial design when bringing the new line to the new districts was to follow Lyublinskaya Street, not far from the bank of the Moskva River. However, after several debates, this was altered and the line would continue westwards until it reached Volzhsky Boulevard and only then turn southwards towards the districts of Lyublino. Although this left out the possibility of railway transfer with Kurskaya, it did allow the metro to enter into the heart of the region more thoroughly.

The change in plans, combined with the financial crises that beset the metro construction in the 1990s, meant that the first stage opened with delays. In late 1995 the first section finally opened, and a year later it would reach Maryino. Several problems were encountered with the construction, particularly for Dubrovka. This station was left incomplete due to nearby factories heating up the soil, which prevented the freezing of the underground water to allow the construction of an escalator tunnel. However, in the late 1990s, because of the financial crises which paralyzed most of the industries, the metro-builders were able to complete the station.

Despite the delays, the line demonstrated some of the newest methods for metro-building. Deep-level stations were built on a monolithic concrete plate instead of a conventional tubular base. Also, the new wall-column design was introduced on two of the deep-level stations and a single-deck for the shallow ones. New finishing materials, such as a fibreglass vaults, were added to offer more reliable waterproofing.

The development of further extensions was for many years delayed and paralyzed by the lack of finances, and only in 2005 construction was resumed on the long-awaited second stage towards the city centre, with Trubnaya being the first to open on August 30, 2007. Sretensky Bulvar was opened on this section on December 29 the same year.

The second segment of a central extension was opened on June 19, 2010 (construction was resumed only in early 2007) and included two stations Dostoyevskaya and Maryina Roshcha.

In a separate case, a three station extension from Maryino to Zyablikovo (Lyublinsky (southern) radius) began in 1997, but in 2000 the construction sites of the stations Borisovo, Shipilovskaya, and Zyablikovo was abandoned. The importance of this is that Zyablikovo will be a transfer to the Krasnogvardeyskaya station of the Zamoskvoretskaya line. In 2008 construction finally resumed and the stations were opened on 2 December 2011, together with the transfer to the Krasnogvardeyskaya station.

The extension of the line from Maryina Roshcha northwest to Petrovsko-Razumovskaya via Butyrskaya and Fonvizinskaya was originally planned to be opened in December 2015.[1] The projected opening date was later shifted to 2016.[2] The stations were opened on 16 September 2016. Further extension to the north to Seligerskaya is operational and opened on 22 March 2018.[3]