Arbatskaya metro station is located close to the famous Old Arbat street. It was opened in 1953. The central hall is 220 metres long - the second longest in Moscow after Vorobyovy Gory. The theme of the stations decorations is fruit - berries, leaves and vines. This is connected with the fact that where the Ministry of Defence now stands above, there was previously a food market. During the Second World War, the market's building was bombed and largely destroyed. It was decided not to reconstruct it, but its memory lives on in the design on the metro station as the station's arches repeat the contours of the old market. At the top of the escalator on ground level close to the exit to Ulitsa Vozdvizhenka you will see an enormous empty frame. Up until the mid-1950s there was a giant portrait of Iosif Stalin here.