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.

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.

In 1938 the branch was split into a separate line, and a 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) stretch connecting Alexander Garden and the Kursky railway station opened.

The eastern part of the line was extended three times, one extension being to the Pervomayskaya temporary station inside a newly opened depot.

Subway car types used on the line over the years: In 1953, after the closure of the shallow stations between Ploshchad Revolyutsii and Kievskaya and their replacement with the present deep ones, more westward extensions were planned to begin.

However, Nikita Khrushchev's inspiration after visiting the New York City Subway prompted all works to be cancelled and the shallow stations to be reopened with a westward surface track creating the Filyovskaya line.

Although the construction of surface stations reached the western districts of Moscow by the mid-1960s, the Russian winter climate took its toll on the operation and management of the Filyovskaya line.

In addition to that, the northwestern districts of Moscow, including the Strogino and Mitino housing estates, which were built in the 1970s and 1980s remained isolated.

The mid-1960s general plan proposed the new Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line to have a branch from Polezhayevskaya which would continue westwards into Khoroshovo, Serebryany Bor and ultimately Strogino, and afterwards towards Krasnogorsk.

In 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union state funding was cut to negligible amounts, and the construction of the chordial lines was permanently halted.

The already started section in Mitino and Strogino should be completed and the hooked on to the Filyovskaya line, and for the next ten years all Moscow Metro maps drew the three stations that way.

Although Minskaya was first given the priority, under pressure from the local residents Slavyansky Bulvar, situated closer to residential areas, was finally chosen.

Necessitated by safety measures, a provision for a new station, Troitse-Lykovo, was left between the combined tunnel and Strogino, to be completed once a new housing massif is established there.

Some of the stations in the eastern section of the line are very old and many were built during the 1940s, and their age shows clearly in their appearance as well as their operational technology such as escalators.