Explore the real-world places that appear in Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include VDNKh (Exhibition of Achievements) Station, Botanical Garden Station (Botanichesky Sad), Prospekt Mira Station, Komsomolskaya Station, Polis (Biblioteka Imeni Lenina / Alexandrovsky Sad Complex) and 9 more.
Sokolnicheskaya Line, northern terminus — Artyom's home station
VDNKh is Artyom's home station, where he has spent nearly his entire life. The novel opens here as the station faces a growing existential threat from the Dark Ones — mysterious, terrifying creatures tunneling up from the north. Hunter, a seasoned Ranger from Polis, arrives at VDNKh, warns of the danger, gives Artyom his compass and his mission, and charges him with reaching the legendary Polis station if Hunter himself does not return. This moment of departure is the spark that launches Artyom's entire odyssey.
VDNKh (Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnogo Khozyaystva) opened as a metro station in 1958, serving the vast exhibition park above. Its real name was changed multiple times through Soviet and post-Soviet eras. The station features a deep underground platform and decorative Soviet-era mosaics celebrating agriculture and industry.
The station, now officially named 'VDNKh', remains a busy stop on the Sokolnicheskaya Line. The vast exhibition park above, now branded as VDNKh, operates as a cultural and leisure complex with pavilions, museums, a skating rink, and the iconic Kosmos pavilion.
Visit: VDNKh Metro Station (historic site)
Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line — frontier of the infected northern tunnels
The tunnels near Botanichesky Sad and the adjacent surface zone above the real Botanical Garden are described as deeply unsettling — one of the outermost passages menaced by the Dark Ones. Artyom passes through the fearful northern fringe of the metro network early in his journey, where patrols have gone missing and the psychological pressure of the Dark Ones' influence is already palpable. The station represents the last thin membrane between human habitation and the encroaching supernatural threat.
Botanichesky Sad station opened in 1958 on the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line. It takes its name from the Main Moscow Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences, one of the largest botanical gardens in Europe, which spreads across the surface above.
The station is a working Moscow metro stop. The Botanical Garden above remains open to the public as a major green space, featuring collections of rare trees, a Japanese garden, and a rose garden — a striking contrast to Glukhovsky's vision of it as wasteland.
Visit: Main Moscow Botanical Garden (park)
Ring Line / Sokolnicheskaya Line interchange — a key trading hub
Prospekt Mira serves as one of the major interchange stations on Artyom's journey southward toward Polis. Like many ring-line stations in the novel, it is a contested trading post — a liminal space where travelers barter, factions negotiate, and information flows. Artyom passes through here navigating the political labyrinth of the Metro, where allegiances shift and every stranger is a potential threat or ally. The grand architecture of the real station is reimagined as a soot-blackened cavern lit by mushroom-oil lamps.
Prospekt Mira has two stations — one on the Sokolnicheskaya Line (opened 1935) and one on the Koltsevaya (Ring) Line (opened 1952). The Ring Line station is decorated with elaborate bas-reliefs celebrating science, art, and Soviet progress. The interchange made it historically one of the city's most important transit nodes.
Both Prospekt Mira stations remain active. The Ring Line station's elaborate Stalinist-era décor is well preserved and considered architecturally significant. The surrounding neighborhood is a busy residential and commercial district in central Moscow.
Visit: Prospekt Mira Metro Station (Ring Line) (historic site)
Ring Line — one of the Metro's most opulent underground halls
Komsomolskaya, with its breathtaking vaulted ceiling and yellow chandeliers, appears in the novel as a station of unusual grandeur that has attracted a powerful faction seeking to leverage its prestige and strategic position near three of Moscow's great railway terminals. Artyom moves through it during his journey along the Ring Line, awed by its pre-war magnificence even as refugees huddle beneath its mosaics. Its sheer scale makes it a seat of authority and a place where deals between faction leaders are brokered in the shadows of Soviet glory.
Komsomolskaya Ring Line station, opened in 1952, is considered one of the most spectacular stations in the Moscow Metro. Designed by Alexei Shchusev, its ceiling is adorned with eight massive mosaic panels depicting Russian military heroes, lit by elaborate chandeliers. It serves Komsomolskaya Square, which hosts three major railway terminals.
Komsomolskaya remains a fully operational and iconic metro station. It is widely cited as one of the most beautiful subway stations in the world and is a major tourist attraction. The three terminals above — Leningradsky, Yaroslavsky, and Kazansky — remain among Russia's busiest.
Visit: Komsomolskaya Metro Station (historic site)
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya & Sokolnicheskaya Lines — the intellectual capital of the Metro
Polis is the great destination of Artyom's mission — the legendary intellectual and political capital of the post-apocalyptic Metro, built around the cluster of stations near the Lenin Library. The Brahmins of Polis guard vast archives of pre-war knowledge and claim to govern the Metro through wisdom. Artyom finally reaches Polis and delivers Hunter's warning, meeting the Rangers and the scholars who hold the fate of mankind in their deliberations. It is here that the desperate plan to destroy the Dark Ones using the surface missile installation is conceived and authorized.
Biblioteka Imeni Lenina station opened in 1935 as part of the first line of the Moscow Metro. It sits directly beneath the Russian State Library — one of the largest libraries in the world — and connects to Alexandrovsky Sad and Borovitskaya stations, forming a major interchange cluster adjacent to the Kremlin.
The station cluster remains one of central Moscow's busiest transit hubs. The Russian State Library above is open to the public and holds over 47 million items. Alexandrovsky Sad park runs along the western Kremlin wall and is freely accessible.
Visit: Russian State Library (library)
Koltsevaya Ring Line — border checkpoint of the powerful Hansa confederation
Kurskaya Ring Line station is one of the key checkpoints of Hansa — the mercantile confederation that controls the entire Ring Line and charges tolls for passage. Artyom encounters Hansa's armed border guards here, who scrutinize travelers, confiscate contraband, and sell passage at inflated prices. The confrontation with Hansa's bureaucratic authoritarianism illustrates one of the novel's central political critiques — that even in the apocalypse, commerce and control reproduce the worst of the old world's power structures.
Kurskaya Ring Line station, opened in 1950, is one of the Metro's grandest stops, with white marble columns and a restored Soviet-era inscription in the frieze. It serves as an interchange with the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya and Zamoskvoretskaya Lines and sits above one of Moscow's major railway terminals, Kursky Vokzal.
The station is active and architecturally celebrated. The Ring Line station's Soviet décor, including the restored inscription 'Stalin raised us on loyalty to the people,' was controversially restored in 2014. Kursky railway terminal above remains a major intercity hub.
Visit: Kurskaya Metro Station (Ring Line) (historic site)
Sokolnicheskaya Line, central sector — dominion of the Red fascists
The Red Line — controlled by a neo-Stalinist communist faction — is one of the most politically sinister powers in the Metro. Artyom passes through or around its territory, witnessing propaganda broadcasts through tunnel speakers, show trials of ideological enemies, and the iron discipline imposed on its citizenry. The Red Line's soldiers are fanatical and brutal, executing dissidents and conducting purges in the name of collective survival. Their ideology is a grotesque mirror of Soviet totalitarianism reborn in the dark.
The Sokolnicheskaya Line, opened in 1935 as the very first line of the Moscow Metro, runs from the southwestern districts through the city center and up to the northeastern VDNKh and Shcholkovskaya stations. Its red color on metro maps gave Glukhovsky the thematic foundation for his fictional Red Line faction.
The Sokolnicheskaya Line remains one of the busiest in Moscow. It has been extended multiple times in recent decades and now reaches into the New Moscow districts. The original 1935 stations, including Sokolniki, Park Kultury, and Sportivnaya, retain much of their original Soviet architectural character.
Visit: Sokolnicheskaya Line Metro (Moscow Metro) (historic site)
Zamoskvoretskaya / Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya Lines — neo-Nazi stronghold
The stations around Pushkinskaya and Tverskaya are controlled in the novel by the Fourth Reich — a terrifying neo-Nazi faction that has risen in the Metro's power vacuum. Artyom barely survives passage through their territory. The Fourth Reich enforces racial purity doctrine underground, persecuting those it deems undesirable, conducting executions, and warring with the Red Line in an ideological conflict that mimics the deadliest enmities of the surface world. Their territory represents one of the novel's darkest meditations on how hatred survives even extinction.
Pushkinskaya and Tverskaya are major central Moscow stations that opened in different phases (1975 and 1979 respectively) and were connected by a pedestrian passageway to form a transfer hub. Pushkinskaya Square above was historically Moscow's most prominent site for public protest and free speech demonstrations.
Both stations are busy central Moscow stops beneath Pushkinskaya Square and Tverskaya Street. The square retains a famous statue of Alexander Pushkin and is a well-known public gathering space. Tverskaya Street is Moscow's main commercial artery.
Visit: Pushkinskaya Square (landmark)
Red Square & Kremlin grounds — irradiated wasteland above the seat of power
In the novel's surface sequences, Red Square and the Kremlin are rendered as a ghostly radioactive wasteland. Artyom ventures above ground during his journey and witnesses Moscow's iconic landmarks — St. Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum, the Kremlin towers — as silent, irradiated ruins draped in ash and inhabited by horrifying mutants. The scene is one of the novel's most powerful: the absolute seat of Russian power reduced to rubble, its symbols of permanence proven utterly fragile. Artyom must move quickly before his gas mask filters fail.
The Moscow Kremlin is a fortified complex at the heart of the city, with structures dating from the 12th century. Red Square — adjacent to its eastern wall — has been the symbolic center of Russian political life for centuries, hosting coronations, executions, military parades, and state funerals. Lenin's Mausoleum was erected there in 1924.
The Kremlin remains the official residence of the Russian President and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Red Square is fully open to tourists and hosts state events and seasonal markets. The Kremlin's cathedrals and Armoury Museum are accessible on guided tours.
Visit: Moscow Kremlin & Red Square (historic site)
Ostankino district, northeastern Moscow — derelict broadcast giant on the wasteland
The Ostankino Tower looms in the distance during the surface sequences near VDNKh and the northern wasteland. Glukhovsky uses it as a haunting landmark of the dead civilization — its broadcast antennas silenced, its reinforced concrete cracked, its red lights dark forever. Artyom glimpses it as he moves across the surface, a skeletal monument to the information age that preceded the apocalypse, now just another ruin among ruins under a poisoned sky.
The Ostankino TV Tower, built between 1963 and 1967, stands 540 meters tall and was the world's tallest structure when completed. It served as the central broadcast hub for Soviet and later Russian national television. A fire in 2000 damaged internal cable systems but the structure remained standing.
Ostankino Tower is open to visitors and features an observation deck and a rotating restaurant. It remains the primary broadcast tower for Moscow's television and radio channels. The Ostankino TV Centre complex adjacent to it continues operating as a major Russian broadcast facility.
Visit: Ostankino TV Tower (landmark)
Deep beneath central Moscow — the legendary government metro system
D6, the secret parallel metro built by the Soviet government for military and state use, is one of the great mythologies of Artyom's world. Whispered about in almost every station, D6 is believed to run deeper than the civilian metro, connecting the Kremlin to bunkers, missile sites, and escape routes. The Rangers and Polis leadership hope that D6's rumored connections to surface weapon installations might offer a way to destroy the Dark Ones. The truth of D6 haunts the novel like a ghost — always just beyond reach, a symbol of the pre-war state's ultimate secrets.
Metro-2 (codenamed D6 by the KGB) is a purported secret metro system beneath Moscow, allegedly built during Stalin's era and expanded through the Cold War to connect the Kremlin, FSB headquarters, Vnukovo-2 airport, and deep bunkers. Its existence has never been officially confirmed by the Russian government, though defectors and researchers have produced compelling circumstantial evidence.
Metro-2 remains officially unconfirmed. Urban explorers have claimed to find entrances and partial tunnels, and the network appears in declassified CIA documents. No portion of the alleged system is publicly accessible. It has inspired enormous amounts of Russian urban mythology and popular culture.
Above VDNKh, northeastern wasteland — the climactic launch point
The climax of the novel takes place here — on the ravaged surface above and near the VDNKh area, where a pre-war missile installation is located. Artyom and the Rangers reach this site to launch missiles at the Dark Ones' lair in an attempt to exterminate the threat once and for all. In the novel's devastating and ambiguous ending, Artyom succeeds in triggering the launch — only to be flooded with a final revelation from the Dark Ones themselves, suggesting they had been attempting to communicate and even help humanity, not destroy it. The missiles fire anyway, and Artyom is left to reckon with what he may have done.
The area north of VDNKh in Soviet times housed various scientific and military research installations associated with the All-Union Exhibition complex and adjacent institutions. The Ostankino district and its surroundings were developed heavily in the Soviet period for state communications and research infrastructure.
The area is now a mix of residential neighborhoods, parkland associated with VDNKh, and the grounds of the Botanical Garden. No missile installations are publicly present. The site of the novel's climax is a placid urban greenspace, which gives Glukhovsky's apocalyptic vision its particular ironic power.
Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line — gateway to the Polis cluster
Arbatskaya is one of the stations forming the Polis cluster, the intellectual capital of the Metro. Its deep, cathedral-like platform is described as awe-inspiring even in ruin — one of the largest underground spaces in the Metro, its vaulted ceilings blackened by decades of torch smoke but still monumental. Artyom arrives here in the final stages of his journey to Polis, moving through its grand hall with a growing sense that the pre-war world built something genuinely magnificent underground, even as the world above burned.
Arbatskaya on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line, opened in 1953, is one of Moscow's deepest stations at 40 meters below street level. It was built during the Stalin era with elaborate neoclassical décor — coffered archways, ornate lighting, and an unusually wide platform hall — partly designed to double as a nuclear shelter.
Arbatskaya remains a fully operational metro station and a recognized example of Stalinist architecture underground. It sits near the Arbat — Moscow's famous pedestrian street — and is connected to Alexandrovsky Sad and Biblioteka stations by foot tunnels, forming the Polis interchange in Glukhovsky's fiction.
Visit: Arbatskaya Metro Station (historic site)
Ring Line / Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya / Filyovskaya Lines — a contested three-way interchange
Kievskaya, with its three separate station halls serving different lines, represents one of the most strategically valuable interchange points in the Metro. In the novel, multi-line interchanges like Kievskaya are sites of intense factional negotiation — whoever controls the switching points controls the flow of trade, refugees, and military movement. Artyom passes through or hears tell of Kievskaya as a place where Hansa's Ring Line authority brushes dangerously against the outer stations' independence, and where smugglers exploit the confusion of jurisdiction between platforms.
Kievskaya actually comprises three separate stations — on the Ring Line (1954), the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line (1953), and the Filyovskaya Line (1958) — linked by pedestrian passages. The Ring Line station is particularly celebrated for its Ukrainian-themed mosaics, created largely by Ukrainian artists, depicting scenes of Ukrainian history and culture.
All three Kievskaya stations are active. The Ring Line station's Ukrainian mosaics became politically sensitive after 2014 but have not been removed. The complex sits above Kievsky railway terminal, which serves trains to Ukraine and Western Europe. It is one of Moscow's busiest transport hubs.
Visit: Kievskaya Metro Station (Ring Line) (historic site)
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