Millions of passengers use the subway every day. People are used to spending many hours of life in underground transport, even devote songs and books to this, and do not at all think about how this type of transport became available to most. And even more so, spending their “42 minutes underground” and putting a convenient plastic card in a bag or pocket, no one remembers that once the fare was paid in a completely different way.
Tickets
It is hard to believe, but once in the metro the same system worked as in Soviet ground transport. Instead of travel tickets for the metro, passengers bought tickets, and the controllers checked them in the trains.
Back in 1935, people traveled on cardboard cards. Such a ticket was valid in one direction for half an hour after the mark. Privileged citizens were entitled to discount tickets. The number of season ticket holders did not exceed 10% of the total number of subway passengers, so they were given the name and surname of the owner. It also increased the chances of a return ticket in case of loss or theft.
Later, the number of registered preferential tickets sold reached 700 per day, and a one-time metro ticket became the usual tear-off ticket, the same as in a tram or bus. During the war, the first ticket machine was installed at the Komsomolskaya metro station, which accepted coins of 10 and 15 kopecks. At the same time, a prototype of a reusable metro ticket appeared: subscription books for two and eight rubles. The cost of the trip at that time was 40 kopecks.
Turnstiles
The increasing load on underground transport served as a kind of impetus to the development of machine control. It was simply unrealistic to find the required number of controllers capable of checking tickets from all passengers, especially since many entered and exited at intermediate stations.
The first two turnstiles were tested in October 1935 at the Kropotkinskaya metro station, which was then called the Palace of Soviets, but the first active turnstile appeared only 17 years later: in 1952, the Krasnye Vorota metro station was equipped with an automatic control system.
The automatic control system eliminated paper tickets. Beginning in 1961, passengers began to use the subway, throwing coins worth five kopecks into the turnstile at the entrance. The advantages of such a payment method at that time were obvious: firstly, there was no need to store tickets for the whole trip and be afraid to lose them, secondly, the cost of producing paper tickets was significantly reduced, and thirdly, it saved a lot of budget funds by eliminating controller positions in the subway.
Tokens
In 1935, a batch of "experimental" tokens was issued, the second batch was used on the very first turnstiles, but, mainly, in Soviet times, the role of tokens was played by five-coin coins. However, in 1992, due to the political situation in the country, there was a sharp jump in inflation. Money depreciated literally before our eyes, and it was unprofitable and physically impossible to constantly change the functionality of the turnstiles that initially worked to receive 15 kopecks.
The metro management decided to put into circulation metal tokens, which a little later, in the same year, were replaced with plastic ones. Probably every Muscovite still has somewhere a couple of these pale green translucent circles.
Despite the apparent inconvenience, for more than five years there were exclusively tokens in use, and only in 1997 introduced paper magnetized tickets. The use of tokens finally ceased only in February 1999.
Cards
A card with a magnetic tape was gradually replaced by a contactless metro pass. Thanks to this, in 2000 a single travel card for the metro and local trains was introduced. Finally, magnetic cards disappeared in 2002.
In 2013, the tariffs and fare payment system were completely updated. They introduced the Troika, which everyone loved so much. At the same time, “one-time” tickets (for one, two and five trips) went up several times, and the fare on contactless cards “Troika”, which is a kind of electronic wallet, on the contrary, decreased.
At present, to buy a travel card in the metro for a year, it is enough to deposit 18,200 rubles on the Troika card. This can be done either through a cash desk or vending machine in cash or by card, or by electronic transfer. This pass is valid for 12 months on any type of transport within Moscow.