What seems to be taken for granted now was once science fiction. Candy became widely available, but a hundred years ago they were terribly expensive and in short supply. Phones are endowed with features that not every computer can boast of, and even twenty-five years ago, only a huge imagination could allow a phone to be non-landline. The subway, which is part of everyday life and means of transportation for most Kyivans, appeared less than sixty years ago.
Third in the Union
Kiev metro was the third in the Soviet Union after the metropolitan and Leningrad. The opening of the first metro line took place on the eve of the anniversary of the October Revolution in 1960. The first Kyiv metro stations formed a line connecting the railway station with the Dnieper and running along the central axis of the city. For the sake of historical fairness, it should be noted that the first project of an underground railway in the city, following the example of London, was considered at the end of the nineteenth century, but the city authorities did not support it. Just as they did not support a similar project at the beginning of the twentieth century, literallyyear before the revolutionary events. Already in the thirties, they made a new attempt and even began to carry out preparatory work, but they were interrupted by the war, and the project died down for a decade. During the post-war restoration of the city, they did not return to the resumption of underground work, it was not up to it. But since 1949, the construction of the Kyiv metro began to boil.
Long start and rapid growth
Underground manipulations were new to the builders, the terrain was not particularly studied, because of which complications arose and the construction and connection of the first five stations stretched for a decade. At that time, one of the deepest metro stations in the world, Arsenalnaya, was built, and the line itself, called Svyatoshinsky-Brovarska, still bears the title of the deepest in the world. The first Kyiv metro stations did not remain alone for long. Their number gradually increased, and the opening dates of new stations were constantly timed to coincide with the main holiday of the Soviet Union. Eleven stations of the first metro line had already been opened when construction began on a new line in 1970. The new line was called "Kurenevsko-Krasnoarmeiskaya" and crossed the existing one almost at a right angle. The first Kyiv metro stations of this line began to operate in 1976. The third, the last for today, was the Syretsko-Pecherskaya line, the stations of which opened in 1989, although it began to be built eight years earlier. The newest line connected the historical central and newly built southern Kyiv. Metro station"Kharkovskaya" was built literally in the center of the new urban area and put into operation in 1994.
Subway map
The first stations were few, and the passengers knew them all by heart. But their number increased, transfer stations appeared, and there was an urgent need to visually show all Kyiv metro stations. The scheme of today's metro in the capital of Ukraine looks like this:
The Red "Svyatoshinsky-Brovarska" line now has eighteen stations and has a length of more than twenty-two kilometers. The blue "Kurenevsko-Krasnoarmeyskaya" also includes eighteen stations with a length of almost twenty-one kilometers. The youngest, green "Syretsko-Pecherskaya" includes only sixteen stations, but it is the longest - about twenty-four kilometers.
Stations today
Initially, the stations had names that were required in the country of the victorious revolution. But after the declaration of independence, the majority was renamed. The stations were named historical or new, by the name of the places near which they were located. By the time the European Football Championship was held in the country, the metro had acquired the sound of the English names of the stations and the places of transfers to the city train. But despite the large volume of new construction and the significance of the human flow (more than five hundred million passengers a year), residents of the capital of Ukraine want to get new Kyiv metro stations that will allowtravel by the most convenient public transport without transfers.
