Notes from the underground: Moscow's metro

Originally named after communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in 1935, Moscow's iconic metro is one of the world's busiest undergrounds.

A showcase for the Soviet Union, the visually spectacular stations are adorned with mosaics, marble statues and stained glass that tell the story of the communist state.

An eclectic mix of old and new, images of Lenin can be found throughout the metro, in the form of statues, mosaics and a giant bust on the wall in Ilyich Square station.

Images of Lenin's successor Josef Stalin were largely removed from the Soviet Union after he was denounced by then leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1956.

A statue of Stalin was removed from Kurskaya metro station in central Moscow, but a quote from the Soviet national anthem "Stalin reared us on loyalty to the people - he inspired us to labour and heroism" was restored to the metro's entrance in 2009.

At Kievskaya, a station built in 1954 when Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, a vivid mosaic dedicated to Russian-Ukrainian friendship occupies one wall.

The two countries are now in conflict after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Revolution Square is home to four separate statues of border guards and their faithful dogs, each hound with a shiny nose from the superstitious rubbing for luck carried out by the passengers as they pass through.

In 2016 the British Council together with the Moscow Metro launched the "Shakespeare train" to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

A ballet version of Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot was also recently performed in Dostoyevskaya metro station, which is named after the author.

One fading metro tradition, missed by locals, is the replacement of the characterful elderly women who used to sit in a booth at the bottom of the escalators and manage the station.

Famous for telling passengers off if they sat down on the escalator steps or walked up the wrong side of the staircase - the attendants are now mainly young men.

The metro has been expanding fast in the last few years, and modernising with one eye on the World Cup that Russia will be hosting in 2018.

Today there are 206 stations and up to nine million passengers a day, plus free wifi and "selfie spots" to help tourists take photos featuring the best of the metro's architecture.

Announcements in English are also gradually being introduced across the lines, and tourist stands with metro-related gifts - including model souvenirs of the lucky guard dogs - have been introduced into stations.