gary johnson tour divide

Gary Johnson to Take On the Tour Divide in 2017

The presidential candidate hopes to finish the grueling 2,745 mile race in about 30 days

Presidential candidate Gary Johnson has hit a few bumps on the campaign trail this fall, but until he stumbled on a question about Aleppo, Syria, during a Q&A on MSNBC in September, the former two-term governor of New Mexico had been running a solid campaign. Some millennials saw Johnson’s Libertarian platform as a welcome alternative to the two-party majority, and health-minded voters connected with him personally—he’s an avid cyclist, mountain climber, and runner who famously wore sneakers to every campaign event.

          RELATED: Why President Obama's Chief of Staff Commutes by Bike Every Day

Those plans are predicated on not winning the presidential election, of course, though that possibility has become less likely over the past several weeks. As recently as August, Johnson reached as high as 10 percent in polls—the most support for a third party candidate in 20 years. But he came up short of the 15 percent needed to earn a spot in the presidential debates, which could have gained him more recognition. Political monitoring blog FiveThirtyEight now expects Johnson to bring in only 4.7 percent of the popular vote, and gives the candidate a less than one percent chance of winning.

I think so many people experience failure and crawl up in a ball and give up as opposed to [thinking] it’s part of the process and you have got to keep on going.

If the presidential race were a true battle of the fittest, though, Johnson would be on top. While his Republican and Democratic opponents have faced questions about their health, Johnson’s fitness resume is likely only matched by a few people on the planet. He’s completed four Ironman triathlons, including an impressive 10:39 in 1999, averaging better than 20 mph for the 112-mile bike leg. In running shoes he has completed 17 marathons (best of 2:47). And as of this year, only 416 people have equaled him in scaling all of the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on all seven continents, including Everest. But, outside of perhaps skiing near his home in Taos, his favorite activity is biking.

“My two passions are skiing and cycling—mountain biking and road biking,” Johnson says. “Mostly, I really, really love mountain biking .”

His proudest mountain biking accomplishment is completing the Transalp race, a grueling ride through the mountains in Europe. This year’s eight stages cover nearly 400 miles, with 65,000 feet of climbing.

     RELATED:  This Is Your Body on a Climb

“The Transalp was really incredibly difficult,” Johnson says. “I did that two years in a row. That was a great experience. It took me from being a novice mountain biker to a pro mountain biker. And when I say pro, that is very, very relative.”

Other international mountain bike races he has undertaken include the Cape Epic (425 miles this year) and TransPortugal (625 miles). Stateside, he’s completed the Leadville Trail 100 MTB race eight times.

Johnson has said that the role sports have played in his life—and his experiences dealing with celiac disease—would certainly influence his health policies as president. “So much of what ails people has to do with diet and exercise,” he says. “And if people were to actually engage in walking instead of driving, if they would engage in an examination of their diet , it wouldn’t be a mystery.”

He’s also applauded the work the Obamas have done to promote health and wellness in the country. “I applaud Michelle and the initiative in regards to what we eat. And [my fiancée, Kate Prusack] has pledged to maintain Michelle’s garden.”

Johnson mentions that his experiences riding have also helped him deal with the difficulties in running for office. “Life is all about setbacks,” he says. “I think so many people experience failure and crawl up in a ball and give up as opposed to [thinking] it’s part of the process and you have got to keep on going.”

After the election, Johnson is eager to get back on his matching S-Works models from Specialized —a Roubaix road bike and 29er mountain bike. While campaigning, he’s had to cut down significantly from the 15 to 21 hours a week that he rode before election season. Still, he has managed to log numerous rides, most recently a 70-mile trek Oct. 15 from Taos to a rally in Santa Fe. He made the ride with his fiancée whom he met—surprise, surprise—on a group ride in 2008.

          RELATED: First Ride Impressions: The 2017 Specialized Roubaix

“Her passion is mountain biking and road biking,” Johnson says. “We ride all the time. It’s a blast.”

Prusack agrees: “It’s kind of who we are and what we do.”

W orkouts are about the only time they've gotten to spend together during the campaign. Prior to being interviewed for this article, the pair had finished an 80-mile ride in preparation for her upcoming century race.

“He got in yesterday at 10:30 and at 11:30 we were on our bikes,” Prusack says.

Johnson estimates that he’s completed between 150 to 200 rides of 100 miles or more. About half of those have been on his annual 500-mile trip across the state of New Mexico  (which he's completed 17 times), with another 15 centuries logged on a ride from Taos to Napa Valley, California, roughly six months after a paragliding accident that broke numerous bones. He also once logged 485 miles over the course of a single 36-hour ride.

          RELATED: 6 Ways to Avoid Fading on a Long Ride

So, while many who attempt it can't say the same, Johnson might actually be prepared for the Tour Divide Mountain Bike Race next year. The route is billed as the “longest off-pavement route in the world," crossing the Continental Divide 30 times over about 200,000 feet of elevation change. Johnson estimates he can complete the race in about 30 days—roughly double the pace of the record, but shorter than the six to 10 weeks most riders take.

          RELATED: Photos from the 2013 Tour Divide

So, after completing the Tour Divide Race, two runs for president, and a slew of other feats of strength, what would Johnson most want to do if he had a day to himself? 

“It would be a bicycle ride, probably mountain biking or road biking,” he says.

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Beaten US presidential candidate targets 2,800-mile Tour Divide bike race (+ video)

Beaten US presidential election candidate Gary Johnson may not have won the race for the White House, but he already has his sights set on another challenge – and it’s one he’ll undertake a bicycle and which covers almost 2,800 miles.

The former Republican New Mexico governor who has stood on a Liberatarian in ticket in the past two presidential elections received 4 million votes this year – 3.25 per cent of the total – putting him a distant third to Hillary Clinton and president-elect Donald Trump.

Now he is targeting the Tour Divide challenge, which runs 2768.4 miles along the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route from Banff in the province of Alberta, Canada, to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. It includes sections of gravel and singletrack, and some stretches that are simply not rideable at all, with entrants having to carry their bikes across.

The self-supported ultra-cycling race, founded in 2008, has no entry fee, no sponsorship and no money and is billed as a test of the rider’s physical endurance and mental resilience. The current record, established this year, is 13 days, 22 hours, and 51 minutes and was set by Britain's Mike Hall.

According to Bicycling.com , Johnson plans to complete it in around 30 days – and while Hall’s record won’t be troubled, that would be well within the six to 10 weeks most entrants need to complete the journey.

A four-time Ironman triathlon finisher, who has also ridden the 500 miles across New Mexico 17 years in a row, the 63-year-old said: “My two passions are skiing and cycling — mountain biking and road biking, Mostly, I really, really love mountain biking.”

That’s reflected by the fact he has completed Europe’s Transalp stage race, as well as the Cape Epic in South Africa and, back in the US, the Leadville 100 on eight occasions.

He said: “The Transalp was really incredibly difficult. I did that two years in a row. That was a great experience. It took me from being a novice mountain biker to a pro mountain biker. And when I say pro, that is very, very relative.”

His love of cycling has also changed his life in another way, according to Bicycling.com – Johnson met his fiancée, Kate Prusack, on a group ride eight years ago.

“Her passion is mountain biking and road biking,” he explained. “We ride all the time. It’s a blast.”

Johnson’s sense of adventure isn’t confined to the bicycle – he’s one of fewer than 500 people to have scaled the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on all seven continents including Mount Everest in Nepal and Mount Vinson on Antarctica.

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Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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10 comments.

I'm pretty sure most entrants finish well before 6-10 weeks. If you average 90 miles or fewer for a week you are bumped from 'racing' to 'touring' on the GPS tracking leader board.

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Maybe someone will make an updated documentary with this joker, Gary doing the race now...

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/14028

Now that's someone worth voting for! Would he have any time left for presidenting tho?

BennyHop wrote: Now that's someone worth voting for!

No, not really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i3u6rAOoSI

I think you will find Mike Hall is the record holder beating Kato's time back in June, close to 14 days.

A beutiful race I have done and hope to return to in a couple of years.

Singletrack magazine says Mike's time was 13d 22h 51 mins, absolutely nuts is that time.

Blackhound wrote: I think you will find Mike Hall is the record holder beating Kato's time back in June, close to 14 days.

Ah, thanks, that's corrected- and chapeau for having completed it yourself.

What is Aleppo ?

Housecathst wrote: What is Aleppo ?

A town in Pennsylvania.

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Former Gov. Gary Johnson rides the Divide

The Tour Divide mountain bike race is a grueling slog over mountains, in the sand and mud, which — in its path between the United States’ northern and southern borders — passes right through Silver City. On Wednesday, former New Mexico governor and regular Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson joined the scores of riders who have progressed this far on the trail this year.

And, as so many of those riders do, when they arrive, Johnson stopped in to talk trail with the gang at Gila Hike & Bike. The boys had been watching Johnson’s moves closely online over the last few days as he neared Silver City and were ready to welcome him.

It took Johnson just 34 days to pedal his way from Banff, in Alberta, Canada, south to Silver City. From here, he had only 130 miles left to go. Johnson planned to finish those between 4 and 6 p.m. on Thursday, barring mud, a problem which had plagued him in the days before reaching Silver City.

Johnson, who is 64 years old, said he had loved the experience thus far.

“When I started this, it was just with the hope that I would want to do it again,” he said. “And so far, I am in that camp.”

That positivity followed more than 2,600 miles of severe conditions, unforgiving weather and a difficult course to navigate. Online tracking of Johnson’s journey reports that he deviated from the course at some point during his ride. According to Johnson, he was not notified of that deviation — which he said only took an hour — until two days after the fact. As he raced to Antelope Wells, New Mexico, the end of the course, Johnson said he would take issue with anyone who claimed he did not complete the Tour, no matter his slight deviation.

As a first-time Tour Divider, Johnson said knowing the trail, the stops, the timing of the trek beforehand — the knowledge returning riders cultivate — would have made a “three-day difference.”

As for the politics — particularly the increasing number of candidates announcing for his former seat in Santa Fe — Johnson said he hadn’t kept up at all recently. That, he said, has been a relief.

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American presidential candidate Garry Johnson to ride Great Divide Mountain Bike Route

The libertarian nominee for president with an impressive athletic resume focuses on cycling.

Having finished a distant third to president-elect Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson is gearing up for his next challenge. Shifting from politics to pursuing his love for cycling, Johnson is now planning to ride the nearly 3,000 mile (5,000 km) Great Divide Mountain Bike Route in 2017.

Gary Johnson 2016! #fitness #GaryJohnson2016 #biking #climbing #hiking #backpacking #outdoors #camping #cycling pic.twitter.com/KCYOXSCleu — Adam (@IA_For_Johnson) May 11, 2016

As a physically active politician, he leaves public service to now focus on other pursuits. Beginning in Banff, Alberta and finishing in Antelope Wells, New Mexico, the Great Divide Mountain bike route is touted as the longest off-pavement route in the world traveling north to south crisscrossing the continental divide. The route passes through remote areas and features over 60,000 metres in elevation gain.

Johnson, 63, said that he plans to undertake the ride from Canada down into New Mexico sometime in early June 2017. “I’m dedicating myself to health and fitness,” Johnson told the Albuquerque Journal . “Maybe I stay politically active, but not as a candidate. I will leave that to others.”

RELATED:  Is caffeine slowing you down?

Johnson has climbed Mount Everest and has completed 17 marathons with a personal best of 2 hours and 47 minutes In September, Men’s Health asked if he was the fittest presidential candidate of all time. He has also competed in four Ironman world championships in Kona, Hawaii where his PB of 10:39 is quite impressive.

“Athletics has taught me that it is all about putting one foot in front of the other,” Johnson told Men’s Health . “Life is about setbacks—meaning that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. You might as well plan on that. It’s how you deal with setbacks that ultimately determines success. I think so many people experience failure and crawl up in a ball and give up.”

Johnson failed to reach his goal and get the five per cent of the popular vote nationwide he was hoping for in order to secure his Libertarian party federal funding. He now can focus on preparing for his athletic challenges which he does with a healthy diet and an abundance of exercise.

“I don’t do sugar , and I haven’t had a drink of alcohol in 29 years,” he said. “When you consider health and wellness, so much of it comes from what you eat. I always say ‘Your motor is only as good as the octane that you’re feeding it.’”

After a long election season during which he received criticism for being unable to name the leader of North Korea, needing to ask ‘What is Aleppo?’ when questioned about the city that has been at the center of the Syrian conflict and refusing to name a politician he looks up to, Johnson can now take a step back from the public eye and spend more time riding his bike.

RELATED:  Joyful dog joins in on pro cyclocross race in Belgium

“I discovered a long time ago that being as fit as I could possibly be every day was something that made my life work,” said Johnson so Men’s Health . “So I’m as fit as I can be every day of my life.”

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Gary Johnson’s impressive track record — in another kind of race

There's a lot of talk about health in this year's presidential campaign, and most of it has a critical tone: Donald Trump would be the oldest president ever. Hillary Clinton has pneumonia. But Men's Health magazine looks at the upside in a piece by Robert Bergland headlined "Is Gary Johnson the Fittest Presidential Candidate of All Time?"

Answer: “No contest.” Johnson, 63, a two-term governor of New Mexico who is charitably described as “running a distant third,” has climbed the highest mountain on each of the seven continents, including Mount Everest. He has completed 17 marathons, with a killer personal best time of 2 hours 47 minutes. He’s finished four Ironman World Championship triathlons, achieving an “impressive” time of 10 hours 39 minutes in 1999. (The all-time records for men are around eight hours.)

Six months after a 2005 paragliding accident left him with multiple broken bones, Johnson took a 1,500-mile bicycle trip across some notably hot and mountainous territory — Santa Fe, N.M., to California’s Napa Valley. Although he cut back his running regimen after getting frostbitten toes on Everest, he still tries to get 15 to 21 hours of athletic activity a week, reduced to six hours during election season. He doesn’t do sugar or alcohol — but he has used medical marijuana, for pain relief after the paragliding incident.

With polling numbers in the single digits, Johnson isn’t raising expectations that he will be bringing his impressive fitness résumé to the White House. But he has a plan if he loses, he told the magazine: He wants to bicycle the Continental Divide from Banff, Canada, to Antelope Wells, N.M. “I discovered a long time ago that being as fit as I could possibly be every day was something that made my life work,” he said. “So I’m as fit as I can be every day of my life.”

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The tour includes all the best Moscow has to offer! It combines a walking tour of the city center (Red Square and surroundings) with Metro tour and visits to the best museums of Moscow: the Kremlin, the Armoury, the Diamond Fund and the Tretyakov Art Gallery. A city tour by car allows you to see the sights scattered around Moscow! See more

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In Transit: Notes from the Underground

Jun 06 2018.

Spend some time in one of Moscow’s finest museums.

Subterranean commuting might not be anyone’s idea of a good time, but even in a city packing the war-games treasures and priceless bejeweled eggs of the Kremlin Armoury and the colossal Soviet pavilions of the VDNKh , the Metro holds up as one of Moscow’s finest museums. Just avoid rush hour.

The Metro is stunning and provides an unrivaled insight into the city’s psyche, past and present, but it also happens to be the best way to get around. Moscow has Uber, and the Russian version called Yandex Taxi , but also some nasty traffic. Metro trains come around every 90 seconds or so, at a more than 99 percent on-time rate. It’s also reasonably priced, with a single ride at 55 cents (and cheaper in bulk). From history to tickets to rules — official and not — here’s what you need to know to get started.

A Brief Introduction Buying Tickets Know Before You Go (Down) Rules An Easy Tour

A Brief Introduction

Moscow’s Metro was a long time coming. Plans for rapid transit to relieve the city’s beleaguered tram system date back to the Imperial era, but a couple of wars and a revolution held up its development. Stalin revived it as part of his grand plan to modernize the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s. The first lines and tunnels were constructed with help from engineers from the London Underground, although Stalin’s secret police decided that they had learned too much about Moscow’s layout and had them arrested on espionage charges and deported.

The beauty of its stations (if not its trains) is well-documented, and certainly no accident. In its illustrious first phases and particularly after the Second World War, the greatest architects of Soviet era were recruited to create gleaming temples celebrating the Revolution, the USSR, and the war triumph. No two stations are exactly alike, and each of the classic showpieces has a theme. There are world-famous shrines to Futurist architecture, a celebration of electricity, tributes to individuals and regions of the former Soviet Union. Each marble slab, mosaic tile, or light fixture was placed with intent, all in service to a station’s aesthetic; each element, f rom the smallest brass ear of corn to a large blood-spattered sword on a World War II mural, is an essential part of the whole.

The Metro is a monument to the Soviet propaganda project it was intended to be when it opened in 1935 with the slogan “Building a Palace for the People”. It brought the grand interiors of Imperial Russia to ordinary Muscovites, celebrated the Soviet Union’s past achievements while promising its citizens a bright Soviet future, and of course, it was a show-piece for the world to witness the might and sophistication of life in the Soviet Union.

It may be a museum, but it’s no relic. U p to nine million people use it daily, more than the London Underground and New York Subway combined. (Along with, at one time, about 20 stray dogs that learned to commute on the Metro.)

In its 80+ year history, the Metro has expanded in phases and fits and starts, in step with the fortunes of Moscow and Russia. Now, partly in preparation for the World Cup 2018, it’s also modernizing. New trains allow passengers to walk the entire length of the train without having to change carriages. The system is becoming more visitor-friendly. (There are helpful stickers on the floor marking out the best selfie spots .) But there’s a price to modernity: it’s phasing out one of its beloved institutions, the escalator attendants. Often they are middle-aged or elderly women—“ escalator grandmas ” in news accounts—who have held the post for decades, sitting in their tiny kiosks, scolding commuters for bad escalator etiquette or even bad posture, or telling jokes . They are slated to be replaced, when at all, by members of the escalator maintenance staff.

For all its achievements, the Metro lags behind Moscow’s above-ground growth, as Russia’s capital sprawls ever outwards, generating some of the world’s worst traffic jams . But since 2011, the Metro has been in the middle of an ambitious and long-overdue enlargement; 60 new stations are opening by 2020. If all goes to plan, the 2011-2020 period will have brought 125 miles of new tracks and over 100 new stations — a 40 percent increase — the fastest and largest expansion phase in any period in the Metro’s history.

Facts: 14 lines Opening hours: 5 a.m-1 a.m. Rush hour(s): 8-10 a.m, 4-8 p.m. Single ride: 55₽ (about 85 cents) Wi-Fi network-wide

Buying Tickets

• Ticket machines have a button to switch to English.
• You can buy specific numbers of rides: 1, 2, 5, 11, 20, or 60. Hold up fingers to show how many rides you want to buy.
• There is also a 90-minute ticket , which gets you 1 trip on the metro plus an unlimited number of transfers on other transport (bus, tram, etc) within 90 minutes.
• Or, you can buy day tickets with unlimited rides: one day (218₽/ US$4), three days (415₽/US$7) or seven days (830₽/US$15). Check the rates here to stay up-to-date.
• If you’re going to be using the Metro regularly over a few days, it’s worth getting a Troika card , a contactless, refillable card you can use on all public transport. Using the Metro is cheaper with one of these: a single ride is 36₽, not 55₽. Buy them and refill them in the Metro stations, and they’re valid for 5 years, so you can keep it for next time. Or, if you have a lot of cash left on it when you leave, you can get it refunded at the Metro Service Centers at Ulitsa 1905 Goda, 25 or at Staraya Basmannaya 20, Building 1.
• You can also buy silicone bracelets and keychains with built-in transport chips that you can use as a Troika card. (A Moscow Metro Fitbit!) So far, you can only get these at the Pushkinskaya metro station Live Helpdesk and souvenir shops in the Mayakovskaya and Trubnaya metro stations. The fare is the same as for the Troika card.
• You can also use Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Rules, spoken and unspoken

No smoking, no drinking, no filming, no littering. Photography is allowed, although it used to be banned.

Stand to the right on the escalator. Break this rule and you risk the wrath of the legendary escalator attendants. (No shenanigans on the escalators in general.)

Get out of the way. Find an empty corner to hide in when you get off a train and need to stare at your phone. Watch out getting out of the train in general; when your train doors open, people tend to appear from nowhere or from behind ornate marble columns, walking full-speed.

Always offer your seat to elderly ladies (what are you, a monster?).

An Easy Tour

This is no Metro Marathon ( 199 stations in 20 hours ). It’s an easy tour, taking in most—though not all—of the notable stations, the bulk of it going clockwise along the Circle line, with a couple of short detours. These stations are within minutes of one another, and the whole tour should take about 1-2 hours.

Start at Mayakovskaya Metro station , at the corner of Tverskaya and Garden Ring,  Triumfalnaya Square, Moskva, Russia, 125047.

1. Mayakovskaya.  Named for Russian Futurist Movement poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and an attempt to bring to life the future he imagined in his poems. (The Futurist Movement, natch, was all about a rejecting the past and celebrating all things speed, industry, modern machines, youth, modernity.) The result: an Art Deco masterpiece that won the National Grand Prix for architecture at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. It’s all smooth, rounded shine and light, and gentle arches supported by columns of dark pink marble and stainless aircraft steel. Each of its 34 ceiling niches has a mosaic. During World War II, the station was used as an air-raid shelter and, at one point, a bunker for Stalin. He gave a subdued but rousing speech here in Nov. 6, 1941 as the Nazis bombed the city above.

Take the 3/Green line one station to:

2. Belorusskaya. Opened in 1952, named after the connected Belarussky Rail Terminal, which runs trains between Moscow and Belarus. This is a light marble affair with a white, cake-like ceiling, lined with Belorussian patterns and 12 Florentine ceiling mosaics depicting life in Belarussia when it was built.

Transfer onto the 1/Brown line. Then, one stop (clockwise) t o:

3. Novoslobodskaya.  This station was designed around the stained-glass panels, which were made in Latvia, because Alexey Dushkin, the Soviet starchitect who dreamed it up (and also designed Mayakovskaya station) couldn’t find the glass and craft locally. The stained glass is the same used for Riga’s Cathedral, and the panels feature plants, flowers, members of the Soviet intelligentsia (musician, artist, architect) and geometric shapes.

Go two stops east on the 1/Circle line to:

4. Komsomolskaya. Named after the Komsomol, or the Young Communist League, this might just be peak Stalin Metro style. Underneath the hub for three regional railways, it was intended to be a grand gateway to Moscow and is today its busiest station. It has chandeliers; a yellow ceiling with Baroque embellishments; and in the main hall, a colossal red star overlaid on golden, shimmering tiles. Designer Alexey Shchusev designed it as an homage to the speech Stalin gave at Red Square on Nov. 7, 1941, in which he invoked Russia’s illustrious military leaders as a pep talk to Soviet soldiers through the first catastrophic year of the war.   The station’s eight large mosaics are of the leaders referenced in the speech, such as Alexander Nevsky, a 13th-century prince and military commander who bested German and Swedish invading armies.

One more stop clockwise to Kurskaya station,  and change onto the 3/Blue  line, and go one stop to:

5. Baumanskaya.   Opened in 1944. Named for the Bolshevik Revolutionary Nikolai Bauman , whose monument and namesake district are aboveground here. Though he seemed like a nasty piece of work (he apparently once publicly mocked a woman he had impregnated, who later hung herself), he became a Revolutionary martyr when he was killed in 1905 in a skirmish with a monarchist, who hit him on the head with part of a steel pipe. The station is in Art Deco style with atmospherically dim lighting, and a series of bronze sculptures of soldiers and homefront heroes during the War. At one end, there is a large mosaic portrait of Lenin.

Stay on that train direction one more east to:

6. Elektrozavodskaya. As you may have guessed from the name, this station is the Metro’s tribute to all thing electrical, built in 1944 and named after a nearby lightbulb factory. It has marble bas-relief sculptures of important figures in electrical engineering, and others illustrating the Soviet Union’s war-time struggles at home. The ceiling’s recurring rows of circular lamps give the station’s main tunnel a comforting glow, and a pleasing visual effect.

Double back two stops to Kurskaya station , and change back to the 1/Circle line. Sit tight for six stations to:

7. Kiyevskaya. This was the last station on the Circle line to be built, in 1954, completed under Nikita Khrushchev’ s guidance, as a tribute to his homeland, Ukraine. Its three large station halls feature images celebrating Ukraine’s contributions to the Soviet Union and Russo-Ukrainian unity, depicting musicians, textile-working, soldiers, farmers. (One hall has frescoes, one mosaics, and the third murals.) Shortly after it was completed, Khrushchev condemned the architectural excesses and unnecessary luxury of the Stalin era, which ushered in an epoch of more austere Metro stations. According to the legend at least, he timed the policy in part to ensure no Metro station built after could outshine Kiyevskaya.

Change to the 3/Blue line and go one stop west.

8. Park Pobedy. This is the deepest station on the Metro, with one of the world’s longest escalators, at 413 feet. If you stand still, the escalator ride to the surface takes about three minutes .) Opened in 2003 at Victory Park, the station celebrates two of Russia’s great military victories. Each end has a mural by Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli, who also designed the “ Good Defeats Evil ” statue at the UN headquarters in New York. One mural depicts the Russian generals’ victory over the French in 1812 and the other, the German surrender of 1945. The latter is particularly striking; equal parts dramatic, triumphant, and gruesome. To the side, Red Army soldiers trample Nazi flags, and if you look closely there’s some blood spatter among the detail. Still, the biggest impressions here are the marble shine of the chessboard floor pattern and the pleasingly geometric effect if you view from one end to the other.

Keep going one more stop west to:

9. Slavyansky Bulvar.  One of the Metro’s youngest stations, it opened in 2008. With far higher ceilings than many other stations—which tend to have covered central tunnels on the platforms—it has an “open-air” feel (or as close to it as you can get, one hundred feet under). It’s an homage to French architect Hector Guimard, he of the Art Nouveau entrances for the Paris M é tro, and that’s precisely what this looks like: A Moscow homage to the Paris M é tro, with an additional forest theme. A Cyrillic twist on Guimard’s Metro-style lettering over the benches, furnished with t rees and branch motifs, including creeping vines as towering lamp-posts.

Stay on the 3/Blue line and double back four stations to:

10. Arbatskaya. Its first iteration, Arbatskaya-Smolenskaya station, was damaged by German bombs in 1941. It was rebuilt in 1953, and designed to double as a bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war, although unusually for stations built in the post-war phase, this one doesn’t have a war theme. It may also be one of the system’s most elegant: Baroque, but toned down a little, with red marble floors and white ceilings with gilded bronze c handeliers.

Jump back on the 3/Blue line  in the same direction and take it one more stop:

11. Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square). Opened in 1938, and serving Red Square and the Kremlin . Its renowned central hall has marble columns flanked by 76 bronze statues of Soviet heroes: soldiers, students, farmers, athletes, writers, parents. Some of these statues’ appendages have a yellow sheen from decades of Moscow’s commuters rubbing them for good luck. Among the most popular for a superstitious walk-by rub: the snout of a frontier guard’s dog, a soldier’s gun (where the touch of millions of human hands have tapered the gun barrel into a fine, pointy blade), a baby’s foot, and a woman’s knee. (A brass rooster also sports the telltale gold sheen, though I am told that rubbing the rooster is thought to bring bad luck. )

Now take the escalator up, and get some fresh air.

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