Fifa World Cup 2018: navigating the maddening Moscow Metro is driving football fans to despair in Russia
China, as potential future hosts of the tournament, can learn a lesson from the frustrations that visitors are experiencing on Russian public transport
For all its artistic merit and lavish lighting – chandeliers are not an uncommon sight at the bottom of lengthy, plunging escalators – the Moscow Metro threatens to be a negative on Russia’s hosting of the 2018 World Cup.
The marble walls and striking architecture that sit deep under the city personify a system that melds art and functionality, where the need to move around one of Europe’s biggest cities is married to a pleasing aesthetic. This is not the MTR’s polished, impersonal efficiency.
But there is always, it seems, a sense of helpless despair when standing on the platform of a Moscow Metro station, the grand arches and ornate surroundings doing little to remove a sense of impending, hair-tearing frustration.
Despite being given more than seven years to prepare following Fifa’s announcement of the country’s successful hosting bid in December 2010, the system being used to shuttle hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors around the tournament’s principal venue city remains virtually impenetrable.
Signage using the Cyrillic alphabet dominates – naturally – but with precious few translations available to ease the passage of foreign visitors. The semi-familiarity of the alphabet for English speakers makes it all the more frustrating.