If you are bored, you can visit my Yerevan Metro page. I just added the entire text of a Soviet tourist brochure about the metro to the bottom of that page and the English used is quite humorous... some sentences even seem to be forming a new language. 30,000 copies of that embarrassing text were printed... no wonder the Soviet Union collapsed just 2 years later. Here is the introduction:

If it is your first visit to the capital of the Soviet Armenia, your first problem Is going to be how to reach a place you need. The aim of this brochure is to help you in that matter.

Having looked it through a visitor of Yerevan will acquaint himself with places of interest, squares. museums and theatres of the city, and with all this the spirit of hospitality which is really sincere there.

There are many ways of getting about this city. There is a wide choice of tram, bus and trolley-bus routes in addition to taxi service. But the pride of Yerevan is the Metro, as the Underground is called here.

The date of birth of Metro in Yerevan is stated by March 7, 1981. That day in spring turned a jolly holiday for every citizen.

Of course, a long distance of time had passed since the moment in early 70-s, when due to the problem of shortage for transport means in a rapidly growing city, a problem which turned even more complicated, because of non-homogeneous geological relief, spread of different districts of the city and a great number of small crooked streets, difficult for a car to pass by, a solution for a new and more secure transport means was becoming rnore and more necessary.

A thorough technical analyses and detailed economical calculations, which had been carried in design and research institutions, throughout the country, guided by the State Planning Committee officials, brought up a decision for constructing in Yerevan a subway system--starting from Kievian street to to the Lenin Square.

The work on construction site started in 1972. During the first five years of boring work only a distance of 3,9 km for underground tunnels was passed. The tempo was too slow.

In 1977 the Communist Party's Central Committee together with the Ministry Counsel adopted a special decree entitled "Construction of Metro in Yerevan".

From that day on a new era in the history of city's underground started. The whole country participated in constructing Metro Yerevan. By that time, Armenia, the "country of mountains" had great traditions for tunnel construction. In spite of that, some highly qualified experts for boring, erection and furnishing works from Moscow, Leningrad, Tbilisi and Minsk were the first ones, who started the affair. Until now the metro-constructors in Yerevan will not forget "the great masters" A. Sukhanov, A Tukhamovich and others, who contributed sufficiently to the work.

The Metro stations with their vestibules organically combine national architectural traditions with modern shapes.