From the studio that brought us the new official Moscow Metro map, here’s a map of the St. Petersburg Metro that they’ve developed under their own initiative – with an eye on making it the official map by the time the 2018 FIFA World Cup rolls around.

It’s got all the hallmarks of the Moscow map – great attention to detail, lovely use of colour and iconography, a useful and well-applied underlying grid (see second image above) and more. Interestingly, it seems to use 30-, 45-, and 60-degree angles, but for the most part, this works quite well: the only really awkward angle is at the interchange between the Red and Blue lines towards the southwest of the map.

I’m hoping it’s just Google Translate missing the nuances of the Russian language, but I do find the statement that the studio “invented” the interchange symbol used on this map specially for it quite ridiculous: the exact same triangular “white line connector” symbol first appeared on H.C. Beck’s London Undeground map in 1949!

Our rating: Knowing the amount of work and the number of iterations that the Moscow map went through from initial concept to final product, I’m betting that this is only the beginning of this map’s journey as well. Still, it’s a great start! Four stars!

Source: Art Lebedev Studios (in Russian): Project Page | Process Page