The Arbatsko–Pokrovskaya line (, ) (Line 3) is one of the lines of the Moscow Metro. Chronologically the second to open, it connects the Mitino District and the town of Krasnogorsk to the northwest of Moscow with the eastern suburbs of the Russian capital passing through the city centre. There are 22 stations on the line, which is long, making it the longest line of the system. History The history of this west-east line is one of the more complicated of the Moscow Metro, and is partly due to the politics, namely constant changes of priorities. In 1935, when the first stage opened, a branch of the existing line ran from Okhotny Ryad to the Smolenskaya Square on the Garden Ring. The branch was extended to the Kiyevsky railway station in 1937. In 1938 the branch was split into a separate line, and a stretch connecting Alexander Garden and the Kursky railway station opened. Despite the outbreak of World War II, the construction of the metro continued, and in 1944 three stations of the Pokrovsky radius were completed. The eastern part of the line was extended three times, one extension being to the Pervomayskaya temporary station inside a newly opened depot. It was replaced in 1961 by the Izmaylovsky Park, Izmaylovskaya and the Pervomayskaya stations. These three stations demonstrated a change of design priorities was straying away from Stalinist architecture to the new minimalism centipede designs supported under Nikita Khrushchev's leadership. The line reached its present eastern terminus in 1963 with an extension to Shchyolkovskaya. The western end of the line has a much more complicated history. Though first stations of the west end were built below the surface, given their importance in the centre of Moscow and the threat of a Nuclear War it was considered that these existing stations would be useless as bomb shelters. So, to solve this problem, it was decided to build parallel deep level sections for each station and close the older stations. The new deeper part of the line was opened in 1953. The line was planned to be extended west to the District of Fili, but yet another policy change led to that extension not being built. Nikita Khrushchev was impressed by an extensive network of surface-level stations during his visit to the United States. Because of that, he promoted the idea of building the Filoyvsky Radius on the surface rather than