Since I was a kid, I always been intrigue by the depiction of post-apocalyptic settings in media. With books like Stephen King’s The Stand, the Mad Max series of films and video games like Fallout and Stalker, but for me personally, when I first read Metro 2033 I instantly fell in love with the chilling, claustrophobic portrait of a post-apocalyptic Moscow.
The Inception
Metro 2033 if the creation of the Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky and it is part of a three book series. Dmitry, was raised and born in Moscow and he has worked as a journalist for Euronews and RT. Throughout his time living in Moscow and almost daily using the Moscow Metro, he quickly realised that the metro was made first to be the biggest nuclear bunker in the world, being the one of the deepest metros in the world and having features like hermetic doors. This metro quicky turned to be the main inspiration for the book.
A New World Below
In Metro 2033, Dmitry Glukhovsky introduces readers to a post-apocalyptic Moscow, where life on the surface has been wiped out by nuclear war. The remnants of humanity have retreated underground, living in the vast network of tunnels and stations that once served the city’s metro system. This dark, damp labyrinth has become a fragile civilization—one constantly on the brink of collapse.
The story follows Artyom, a young man born just before the bombs fell, who is forced to leave the safety of his home station to deliver a vital warning. His mission leads him across a fractured underground world, where each station operates like its own micro-nation, some ruled by fascists, others by communists, and many by superstition and fear. While the book contains its share of mutants and horrors lurking in the shadows, its true terror lies in what the war did to humanity. Glukhovsky expertly blurs the line between man and monster, raising unsettling questions about belief, violence, and the cost of survival. Artyom’s journey becomes not just physical, but deeply psychological.
Metro 2033 is a must-read for fans of dystopian fiction, especially those who appreciate gritty realism mixed with philosophical depth. It’s a journey as harrowing as it is unforgettable — and once you enter the tunnels, you may never look at the world above in quite the same way again.