Metro-2

In 2021, a book by Dmitry Yurkov was published which covered new research on the history of special fortification in Moscow.[9][10] Below is a summary of findings.

From declassified archival documents, an overall layout of the track system and its main components can be established for the late 1960s (this is limited by the source material officially released so far). While the system was eventually assembled in the late 1960s by the KGB, originally it was a collection of structures built for a variety of purposes and operators.

This is the oldest component of Metro-2. Construction began in the mid-1950s, and its design was finalised in 1956. It intended to provide a solution to the challenge of extending the red line southwest, beyond the Sportivnaya metro station and the river. Because of the conflicting requirements—a reasonable cost, a secure river crossing, and a civil defence shelter capacity—the final design included a shallow metro line with a vulnerable bridge backed up by a deep single track tunnel—which spurs from the main line after the Sportivnaya station (the initial part of this spur is seen on normal track maps)—and a high-speed elevator shaft.

Originally, there were also other intended peacetime uses, such as nighttime train parking.

If you were to disembark at Sportivnaya metro station on the public Sokolnicheskaya metro line and walk south along the tracks, after a few dozen meters, you would encounter a switch where a section of track turns left. What is remarkable about this seemingly dead-end track is that the third electrical/contact rail suddenly stops. Then you come to a fence with a lamp mounted on it, indicating to metro train operators that the track ends there. If you look beyond that fence, you'll see that the rails continue for some meters and appear to stop at a concrete block. However, that concrete block is not the end of this seemingly dead-end tunnel. The concrete block rests on wheels, allowing it to be rolled aside. Immediately after that concrete block, you reach a heavy gas-tight/water-tight/bombproof door that serves as the secret access point for metro carriages from the public metro network to the Metro-2 network and vice versa. A bit further, you encounter a second heavy gas-tight/water-tight/bombproof door before you truly enter the Metro-2 or D-6 network. Metro carriages can wait at this special 'transfer point' in this way until it is safe to make the crossing to Ramenki. From the transfer point, the D-6 line goes UNDER the 'Moskva' river, ultimately stopping at one of the many underground stations in Ramenki. For the personnel who operate this special transfer point, a separate bunker has been constructed, partly below and partly beside the transfer point. To ensure that personnel can receive an incoming metro train and, for example, move the concrete block, they can access various points between and near the tracks of the transfer point via stairs and ladders from the control bunker.

A shaft R6 of OAO "TransInzhStroy" in Ramenki

Order 10-A is composed out of sites 54 and 54a and was intended to provide protected work spaces for the personnel of the planned Palace of the Soviets behind the Moscow State University campus. The plans for those administrative buildings were tied to the shafts and other features of this underground infrastructure project, but sadly the Palace of the Soviets—much like its pre-World War II variant—was not meant to be located next to Kropotkinstaya metro station.

Order 10-A was made by the 9th directorate of the Ministry for Defence, and for it a new construction organisation (US 10-A, presently Transinzhstroi) was set up in 1955. Construction was started in 1956 and completed by 1963.

Site 54 is composed of at least 5 shafts (1, 2, 3, 5, 6 explicitly mentioned) and includes extensive supporting systems such as air filtering stations and power generation, with the latter designed to support the planned above-ground administrative complex in case of emergencies. The site is connected to the deep single track tunnel at the depth of 189m. Shaft R6, which was used during order 10-A construction, still exists in Moscow and is a marker for its overall location.

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Photos of Metro-2 line ("Branch", deep single-track tunnel)

Site 103 is a large U-shaped structure built in central Moscow, designed to enhance the legacy World War II infrastructure by providing: site 1A in Kremlin (at the depth of 55m), a protected work spaces for the leadership; site 15N, a communications node; site 100 shelter (passing under site 101), a protected work spaces for the KGB. There were links to the existing legacy structures such as sites 25 and 25/2 in Kremlin, and site 201 at Lubyanka. It is also connected to the post-war site 101 at Zaryadie, which was intended to provide protected work spaces for officials working in the 8th Stalin's skyscraper; however, the skyscraper was never built, so site 101 was repurposed to support local Moscow region officials.

However, this project was plagued with a number of problems, such as slow construction (which went well into the mid-1960s), and uncertainty of how it could be evacuated after a nuclear attack. The latter was solved by the construction of "Branch" (Russian: Ветка), which linked site 103 in the city center to the deep single track tunnel and enabled moving people to the city outskirts.

A surface building of Matveevsky air intake (DV-1) with ventilation shafts

After some initial work on a network of air filtering and then air regeneration stations, such as site 703 (aka ChZ-703), the decision was made to shift towards using several large air filtering stations on the outskirts of the city and pumping this clean air into the rest of the deep metro from there. Those were quite large structures (600,000–800,000 m3/h productivity) and required extensive supporting infrastructure of their own.

While five remote air intakes were planned in Moscow, this was later cut to three, with only two actually being built: "Matveevsky" (DV-1) and "Rizhsky" (DV-2). While the latter was neatly connected to the post-war deep metro line, the former used a proprietary air supply tunnel connecting its location at the Matveevskaya railroad platform to the deep single track tunnel. This air supply tunnel was later retrofitted with track, and joined the network. For construction of this air supply tunnel and other related structures, shaft R6 was transferred from US 10-A.

A related additional structure was the special connector line between the red and circle lines, as it would allow transport of air from the deep and nuclear hardened post-war section of the red line to the similarly protected circle line, bypassing the vulnerable area of the red line, which was built in the 1930s. DV-1 could also have been be used as an evacuation exit for the Moscow Metro, due to its location in the city outskirts at the time.

Leningrad also received a remote air intake, located at Lenin's square.

A hermetic gate in a deep single track tunnel that separates Metro-1 from Metro-2, which was built after transferring this tunnel to KGB

In the late 1960s, the DV-1 and its related support infrastructure (i.e. the deep single track tunnel) were transferred to the KGB from the Moscow Metro, with a number of modifications being made, such as reworking the deep single track tunnel connection to the red line and adding a hardened hangar for 10 APCs at the DV-1.

DV (Russian: ДВ) is quite similar to D6 (Д6), and may be one of the ways this designation came to be used in modern online discussions. The so-called "underground city in Ramenki" is likely the result of urban explorers observing extensive support infrastructure for the DV-1. Alternatively, this term has also been linked to the order 10-A (i.e. with the CIA map drawing a large rectangular box with the known shaft R6 in the center).

An underground service platform that is supposedly part of Metro-2

In 1991, the United States Department of Defense published a report entitled Military forces in transition, which devoted several pages to a secret government underground in Moscow. It also included a diagram of the system superimposed on a map of the city.[14]

"The Soviets have constructed deep-underground both in urban Moscow and outside the city. These facilities are interconnected by a network of deep interconnected subway lines that provide a quick and secure means of evacuation for the leadership. The leadership can move from their peacetime offices through concealed entryways in protective quarters beneath the city. There are important deep-underground command posts in the Moscow area, one located at the Kremlin. Soviet press has noted the presence of an enormous underground leadership bunker adjacent to Moscow State University. These facilities are intended for the national command authority in wartime. They are estimated to be between 200 m (660 ft) and 300 m (980 ft) deep, and can accommodate an estimated 10,000 people. A special subway line runs from some points in Moscow and possibly to the VIP terminal at Vnukovo Airfield(...)"

—Military forces in transition, 1991, p. 40

In 1992, in an interview with Time, Deputy Director Broadcaster Igor Malashenko (ru) spoke about the existence of Sofrino-2, about 30 km (19 mi) to the north-east of Moscow's television broadcasting centers, built at great depths in case of nuclear war. According to Malashenko, the equipment was unusable due to age. He went on to say that the same fate befell many of the underground bomb shelters, and in particular a system of underground bunkers beneath the building of Moscow State University, which he said were flooded and had deteriorated.[15]

In 2004, former advisor of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, former Russian president Boris Yeltsin and then president Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Shevchenko (ru) confirmed the existence of a secret in the Moscow Metro.[16]

"Reports on the number of underground communications are greatly exaggerated. In the days of Stalin, who was very afraid of assassination attempts, there was in fact a single-track underground railway line running from the Kremlin to his so-called "Nearby Dacha" in Volynskoye. Today, neither the Dacha nor the subway line are in use. In addition, there were underground transport links between the General Staff and several other government facilities. In 1991 a pneumatic mail tube was constructed between the CPSU Central Committee building in Moscow's Old Square and the Kremlin."

In 2008, Shevchenko once again touched upon the Metro-2.[17]

"Currently, the Kremlin subway cannot be called a transportation artery, and, as far as I know, for its continued operation it required major repairs: for among other things there are a lot of underground utilities which will eventually decay."

In 2008, Mikhail Poltoranin (ru), a minister under Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990s, explained:[17]

"This is an extensive network of tunnels and an emergency command center in case of war, where you can command the nuclear forces of the country. It can hide a lot of people - its maintenance was necessary. I know that the "Metro-2" has branches that go to the suburbs so that the command could move away from the epicenter of a nuclear attack."

When ex-chief of the Moscow Metro Dmitry Gayev was questioned on the existence of the Metro-2, he responded:

"I would be surprised if it did not exist."

In the same year, in an interview with Izvestia, he said:[13]

"There is a lot of talk about the existence of secret transport tunnels. I will not deny anything. I would be surprised if they did not exist. You ask: Can we use them to transport passengers? It is not for me to decide, but for those organizations who own the railways. I do not exclude such a possibility."

In 2008, in an interview in Argumenty i Fakty, the head of the Moscow Metro independent trade union, Svetlana Razina, admitted:[18]

"Several years ago, among the drivers of the Izmailovo depot there was a recruiting for a service on secret routes, and although there were many willing, they were to select only one. Entering the midst of these tunnels is only for people with special clearance. Most often, these branches used very short trains, consisting of battery-electric locomotive and one passenger car."

As stated in a report of ITAR-TASS in 2007:[19]

"Line of the Metro-2 has long been in the KGB office, and subsequently came under the wing of the FSB."

Oleg Gordievsky, a former colonel of the KGB who worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) for 11 years and defected in 1985, in an interview with Argumenty i Fakty called The supreme secret of the KGB, which has not been disclosed until now stated[20]

"You still do not know the main KGB secret yet: a huge underground city, a whole communications network of such facilities. But they will not show you; they will never, of course."

In 2006, the Museum of the Cold War (ru) was opened to the public, located in the old Tagansky Protected Command Point. Also known as "Bunker-42" this museum is located at the GO-42 site, that took over sites 02 and 20. Site 02 was a deeply buried hardened protective structure housing a secure telephone exchange, while site 20 was some sort of military communications node (little hard archival evidence exists beyond that).

Sites 02 and 20 were connected to the regular Metro, with site 02 forming a ring of hardened telephone exchanges together with sites 01 (close to Belorusskaya metro station) and 03 (close to Kievskaya metro station). None of those sites were physically connected to the "Metro-2".

In 2018, a museum opened at the location of the former ministry for foreign affairs secure archive facility ("Bunker-703, also known as MFA site 2 or ChZ-703) .[21] Around 42 meters deep, it was originally intended as a metro air filtering, then air regeneration station, before the metro began work on a remote air intake network.