Editing Moscow Metro (section)

==== Nikita Khrushchev's era of cost cutting ====
{{multiple image
| align             = right
| direction         = horizontal
| image1            = Metro MSK Line1 Universitet.jpg
| caption1          = [[Universitet (Moscow Metro)|Universitet]] (1959), Line 1
| width1            = 200
| image2            = Len Prosp Antares 02.jpg
| caption2          = [[Leninsky Prospekt (Moscow Metro)|Leninsky Prospekt]] (1962), [[Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya line|Line 6]]
| width2           = 200
| image3            = Molodezhnaya-mm.jpg
| caption3          = [[Molodyozhnaya (Moscow Metro)|Molodyozhnaya]] (1965), Line 3
| width3            = 200
| image4            = Metro_MSK_Line7_Polezhaevskaya.jpg
| caption4          = [[Polezhayevskaya]] (1972), [[Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line|Line 7]]. As of January 2022, the variegated walls are preserved "as is"
| width4            = 200
| footer            = 
}}

During the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, the architectural extravagance of new Metro stations was decisively rejected on the orders of [[Nikita Khrushchev]]. He had a preference for a utilitarian "minimalism"-like approach to design, similar to [[Brutalist architecture|Brutalism style]]. The idea behind the rejection was similar to one used to create [[Khrushchyovka]]s: cheap yet easily mass-produced buildings. Stations of his era, as well as most 1970s stations, were simple in design and style, with walls covered with identical square ceramic tiles. Even decorations at the Metro stations almost finished at the time of the ban (such as [[VDNKh (Metro)|VDNKh]] and [[Alexeyevskaya (Metro)|Alexeyevskaya]]) got their final decors simplified: VDNKh's arcs/portals, for example, got plain green paint to contrast with well-detailed decorations and pannos around them.

A typical layout of the cheap shallow-dug metro station (which quickly became known as ''Sorokonozhka'' – "centipede", from early designs with 40 concrete columns in two rows) was developed for all new stations, and the stations were built to look almost identical, differing from each other only in colours of the marble and ceramic tiles. Most stations were built with simpler, cheap technology; this resulted in [[utilitarian design]] being flawed in some ways. Some stations such as adjacent [[Rechnoy Vokzal (Moscow Metro)|Rechnoi Vokzal]] and [[Vodny Stadion (Moscow Metro)|Vodny Stadion]] or sequiential [[Leninsky Prospekt (Moscow Metro)|Leninsky Prospect]], [[Akademicheskaya (Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya line)|Akadmicheskaya]], [[Profsoyuznaya (Moscow Metro)|Profsoyuznaya]] and [[Novye Cheryomushki (Moscow Metro)|Novye Cheryomushki]] would have a similar look due to the extensive use of same-sized white or off-white ceramic tiles with hard-to-feel differences.

Walls with cheap ceramic tiles were susceptible to train-related vibration: some tiles would eventually fall off and break. It was not always possible to replace the missing tiles with the ones of the exact color and tone, which eventually led to [[wikt:variegated|variegated]] parts of the walls.