In St. Petersburg, a new metro station was put into operation on Friday, named after the nearby Gorny Institute of Mining, the first expansion of the metro network in the former imperial capital since 2019. “The opening of the Gorny Institute station is a milestone” wrote Governor Alexander Beglov on Telegram. The city faced “great challenges” during the construction.
The new line leads to Vasilievsky Island and extends the orange line. It is one of the deepest stations in the city, located about 70 meters under the ground. It is expected to be used by up to 97,000 people daily. Metro construction in the second-largest city in Russia is traditionally technically challenging and expensive, as the tunnels have to be drilled very deep due to the soft soil, geological conditions, and numerous water obstacles almost everywhere.
Beglov thanked President Vladimir Putin, the builders, engineers, and the city’s residents for their patience and support. The completion of the station is the “first visible result” of the ongoing efforts to advance the city’s metro system.
The opening comes after years of delays. Originally, the completion was planned for 2018, the year of the World Cup, but was postponed to 2022 and then again. The construction was also overshadowed by a tragic accident in June 2020, when a scaffolding collapsed, killing a worker.
The St. Petersburg metro network now has five lines and 73 stations. In comparison to the rapidly growing Moscow metro, which will be expanded by a total of eight stations by the end of the year, the expansion is rather slow. In September, Moscow had 268 metro stations.