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Yekaterinburg, the former city of Sverdlovsk, has 1.4 million inhabitants and lies on the Asian side of the Ural mountain range.

Preliminary design for the first metro line started in 1980, construction began in 1982. Line 1 runs from the industrial areas in the north towards the city centre and serves the railway station and the bus station. A typical Russian deep alignment was chosen and the whole section was excavated by "drill-and-blast" in very difficult hydrogeological conditions. All stations are underground and have 100 m long platforms for 5-car trains, although currently only 4-car trains are in service (total number of cars - 54).

The first section of the line, from Prospekt Kosmonavtov to Mashinostroiteley opened in March 1991, a few months later it was extended to Ural'skaya and in 1994 to Ploshchad' 1905 goda in the city centre. It has currently a length of 8 km with 6 stations. A further extension towards the south to Geologicheskaya finally opened in Dec 2002 after some years of delays.

26 April 1991: Prospekt Kosmonavtov - Mashinostroiteley

22 Dec 1991: Mashinostroiteley - Ural'skaya

22 Dec 1994: Ural'skaya - Ploshchad' 1905 goda

30 Dec 2002: Ploshchad' 1905 goda - Geologicheskaya

 Projects

The next opening will be two stations, Chkalovskaya and Botanicheskaya. Bazhovskaya station will be finished at a later date.

Line 1 is actually the first line of a planned 3-line network, with all three lines forming a typical Russian triangle in the city centre. But construction of these lines is not very likely in the near future.

Trains operate from 6:00 until 24:00, every four minutes during rush hours.

Fare (2008) - 10 rubles per trip

Yekaterinburg Metro by Denis Pervushin

METASUBWAY YEKATERINBURG includes some photographs

Metrosoyuza by Peter Donn includes nice station pictures

Yekaterinburg Metro at Mir metro/Metroworld by Aksenov Dmitry

Metrostroy

Yekaterinburg Metro Track Map