16 photos of Moscow's beautiful Metro stations, built as propaganda during the time of Stalin

Joseph Stalin rose to power as the leader of the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1920s. As the population quickly rose, it was essential the country address its lack of adequate public transportation. 

An underground system was built in less than three years, launching with 13 stations in the spring of 1935. On its first day, nearly 300,000 Soviet citizens hopped aboard the new transportation service.

But the Metro system was itself a form of Communist propaganda — photos of Stalin were hung inside the stations, which were brightly lit environments that people looked up to, just as they metaphorically looked up to Stalin above ground. 

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but some nine million Russian people go through the Metro's 200 stations each day. It's already among the busiest systems in Europe, but it's still expanding and aims to be the world's largest by 2020.

David Burdeny photographed Moscow's Metro stations over the course of two weeks. He spent a year trying to get access to document the stations between midnight and 6 a.m., when the trains were not running and the stations were empty.

"When you take the activity out of the space, you really begin to experience that space as a whole," Burdeny told Business Insider. "The colors, materials and proportions are easier to digest without the din of activity."

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Currently, there are around 200 Metro stations spread out across 12 lines in Moscow. Burdeny picked 30 that he felt were the most visually interesting or historically significant.

It wasn't easy for Burdeny, especially as a foreigner. (He's Canadian.) He spent over a year struggling to get permission through Russian bureaucratic channels. After he saw the stations featured on an episode of the British TV show "Top Gear," he reached out to the producers, who were able to connect him to the right people.

Eventually, he worked out an arrangement where he could rent out stations by the hour over the course of two weeks.