Photographer Frank Herfort traveled underground for six years for his book CCCP Underground, passing 770 stations in the nineteen cities that received a metro during the Soviet era. Herfort became captivated by ‘the mystique, the immensity and the penetrating feeling of colossal authority’. And he learned how society above ground works.
More than fifty times he was turned away by subway workers, who obediently enforced an incomprehensible ban: photography is forbidden in the most beautiful subway in the world. Once, in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, Herfort had to hand in his camera’s memory card. But much more often, passengers pointed out the hidden treasures of the stations.
