The 120 carriages will be sold in lots of three and the state-owned system hopes to raise a total of almost 8 million rubles ($255,221), said metro spokesman Alexei Manakov.

The blue carriages with a white stripe along the side could be ripped apart and used for scrap metal or be turned into temporary accommodation for construction workers, wrote Izvestia daily, citing a metro official.

More exotically, some could become museum exhibits or be used for spare parts for other metro systems in ex-Soviet countries that use the same type of carriages.

Moscow metro celebrated its 78th birthday this week.