Trains run under the ground in Kyiv.
They help people move fast. The trains go through long tunnels. One station is very deep down. It is a very big system.
Do you like riding trains?
Trains run under the ground in Kyiv.
They help people move fast. The system started in 1960. It had only five stations then. Now it has 52 stations.
One station is very deep. It is the second deepest in the world! The trains go through long tunnels. People use these trains every day. They help many people travel through the city.
It is a very big system.
The Kyiv Metro is a fast train system. It is in Kyiv, Ukraine.
People use these trains to move around the city. The first line opened on November 6, 1960. It had only five stations at first.
Today, the system is much bigger. It has three lines and 52 stations.
Building the metro was not easy. People thought about it as early as 1884. Many plans were made, but they did not happen for a long time. After a big war, the city needed to be rebuilt. Leaders decided to build the metro then. Workers had to drill through hard ground. They even dealt with underground water. One station, called Arsenalna, is very deep. It is the second deepest station in the world!
In the beginning, it was hard to move the trains. There was no place to keep them. Workers used a temporary depot near Dnipro station. They even used a crane to move trains! Now, there is a permanent depot at Darnytsia. This makes it easy to keep the trains ready for people.
The Kyiv Metro is a fast train system in Kyiv, Ukraine.
It helps many people move across the city every day. Today, the system has three lines and 52 different stations. These stations are spread across ten districts in the city. In 2016, about 1.32 million people rode the metro each day. This was a huge part of how people traveled in Kyiv.
Building the tunnels was a very hard job. Workers had to drill through many different types of ground. Sometimes they found unexpected water deep underground. This water caused problems, especially at the Arsenalna station. Even though it was deep, the station faced constant flooding. Arsenalna is actually the second deepest station in the whole world.
People first thought about an underground railway in 1884. A man named Dmytro Andrievskiy suggested a plan back then. Later, an engineer named Papazov created a new project in 1936. Many years passed with many different plans and ideas. The city also went through a big war. After the war ended, the government finally ordered the construction to start.
Construction of the first line began in earnest in 1949. In 1952, there was even a contest to design the stations. The winners used beautiful materials like granite and marble. The first five stations were Vokzalna, Universytet, Khreshchatyk, Arsenalna, and Dnipro.
On November 6, 1960, the first five stations finally opened. Two men, Alexey Semagin and Ivan Vynogradov, ran the first test.
Moving the trains was tricky at the very start. There was no permanent place to keep the trains. Workers used a temporary depot near the Dnipro station. They even had to use a crane to move them! Later, they built a permanent depot at Darnytsia. This allowed trains to move easily from the railway to the metro.
The Kyiv Metro is a rapid transit system serving Kyiv, Ukraine.
It functions as a vital network for moving large numbers of people through the city. The system is owned by the Kyiv City Council. It is operated by a city-owned company called Kyivskyi Metropoliten. Today, the network consists of three distinct lines and 52 different stations. These stations are located throughout the ten raion, or districts, of Kyiv. In 2016, the metro saw an annual ridership of 484.56 million passengers. This averages out to about 1.32 million passengers every single day. In 2014, the metro accounted for 46.7% of all public transport loads in the city.
Construction of the metro involved complex engineering and many challenges. Engineers had to drill tunnels through various types of unexpected drilling terrain. They also encountered difficult underground water sources during the process. These water sources caused frequent flooding at Arsenalna station. Despite these issues, Arsenalna remains a remarkable feat of engineering. It is the second deepest metro station in the world. Only the Hongyancun station in Chongqing, China, is deeper.
The idea for an underground railway in Kyiv began very early. In 1884, Dmytro Andrievskiy, the director of the Southwestern railways, proposed a project. He planned to create tunnels starting near Poshtova square. These tunnels would end near Bessarabka. The plan included building a new railway station at that location. However, the city council eventually turned down this initial project.
Later, in 1916, the Russo-American trading corporation tried to raise funds for a metro. Even then, the city council did not accept the project. In 1918, the project lost support after the downfall of the Hetmanate. By 1920, the Russian Civil War caused the project to be shelved for good.
New momentum arrived when the capital of the Ukrainian SSR moved to Kyiv in 1934. On July 9, 1936, the Kyiv City Council assessed a project by an engineer named Papazov. Papazov was an Armenian graduate of the Moscow University of Transport Engineering. He created a plan called "The Project of the Kyiv Metro." His work addressed city reconstruction and intra-city transportation. The city even gave him a bonus of 1,000 Soviet rubles. In 1938, officials began preparatory work, but the Great Patriotic War stopped everything in 1941. After the war, the Soviet Union ordered a massive reconstruction of Kyiv. On February 22, 1945, a resolution definitively ordered the underground to be constructed.
Planning for the first line, known as M1, began in August 1949. Experts analyzed passenger flows to find the best routes. They chose the Sviatoshyn–Brovary and Kurenivka–Demiivka directions. In 1952, a competition was held to design the stations. Initially, the commission wanted a Stalinist style for all seven stations. This style used rich decorations and Communist symbols. However, the competition was later cancelled due to the Khrushchev Thaw. This political change made the Stalinist style inappropriate for the time.
Despite the changes, work on the tunnels continued through the 1950s. In December 1951, the first tunnel connection was made between Dnipro and Arsenalna stations. The final connection between Vokzalna and Universytet stations was completed in May 1959. A new design competition in 1958 selected the best five designs. These designs were used for the first five stations: Vokzalna, Universytet, Khreshchatyk, Arsenalna, and Dnipro.
Builders used massive amounts of concrete, granite, and marble for decoration. On October 22, 1960, Alexey Semagin and Ivan Vynogradov performed a test run. On November 6, 1960, the first five-station section officially opened.
Early operations faced several logistical hurdles regarding trains and maintenance. Because the stations were so deep, building an on-ground depot was difficult. At first, the city used a temporary depot near Dnipro station. This depot was not connected to the main underground line. To move trains, workers had to use an overhead crane.
Additionally, there was no direct connection to the heavy railway. Type D trains had to be placed on special carriages at Darnytsia station. These carriages were then moved by trams to the temporary depot. To avoid this tedious process, many trains stayed in the tunnels overnight. Eventually, the permanent Darnytsia Metro Depot was built. This allowed trains to move easily between the railway and the metro system.
The system has continued to grow and evolve over many decades. The second stage of the first line finished in 1963. This added the Politekhnichnyi Instytut and Shuliavska stations. In 1965, the line crossed the Dnieper river using the Kyiv Metro Bridge. This allowed the metro to reach large residential areas on the east bank. New stations like Hidropark and Livoberezhna were built on the ground level.
The Kyiv Metro remains a central part of the city's infrastructure. It connects different districts and supports the daily movement of millions of people.
Where will your curiosity go next?
🖼️ Images & Media (35)
+ 23 more
More to explore
✨ What else?
Related topics you might enjoy
🔬 Go deeper
More advanced topics to explore
🪜 Step back
Simpler topics to build understanding
What is Nepedia?
A free, ad-free encyclopedia for children. Every article is written at five reading levels, so the same page works for a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old — use the level switcher above to see this one change. No account needed to read.