Reisverhalen - Onder Moskou

In Russia, communism has collapsed, but underground in Moscow, the doctrine of the ideal state lives on. In the profusely decorated subway arcades, constructed in the thirties by Stalin, mosaics and sculptures sing the praises of farmers and soldiers. The subway system is still very impressive, with its pompous beauty and a new train every forty seconds. But the system is overloaded and poorly maintained. Built to accommodate the huge number of 6.5 million travellers a day, it has to transport nine million these days. Director Leo de Boer interviews a metro worker who helped construct the subway, shows archive footage from the early days and enters the network of corridors under the subway along with the Diggers, a group of people tracing mechanical defects and illegal waste disposal sites. Thus, the idealism lives on underground.