What now seems to be taken for granted was formerly from the category of fiction. Sweets became publicly available, but a hundred years ago they were terribly expensive and scarce. Phones are endowed with such functions that not every computer can boast, and only twenty-five years ago only a huge imagination could imagine a phone not stationary. The metro, which is a component of everyday life and a means of transportation for most of Kiev, 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 occurred on the eve of the anniversary of the October Revolution in 1960. The first metro stations in Kiev made up the line connecting the railway station with the Dnieper and passing along the central axis of the city. For the sake of historical justice, it should be noted that the first project of the 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. As they did not support a similar project at the beginning of the twentieth century, just a year 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 was quiet for a decade. During the post-war reconstruction of the city, they did not return to the resumption of underground work, it was not before that. But already in 1949, the construction of the Kiev metro began to boil.
Long start and fast growth
Underground manipulations were new for builders, the terrain was not particularly studied, because of which there were complications and work on the construction and connection of the first five stations lasted a decade. At that time, one of the deepest metro stations in the world was built - Arsenalnaya, and the line itself, called Svyatoshinsky-Brovarskaya, still bears the title of the deepest in the world. The first metro stations in Kiev did not remain alone for long. Their number gradually increased, and the opening dates of new stations were constantly dedicated to the main holiday of the Soviet Union. Eleven stations of the first metro line were already opened, when in 1970 the construction of a new branch began. The new line was called "Kurenevsko-Krasnoarmeyskaya" and crossed the existing line almost at right angles. The first Kiev metro stations on this line began operating in 1976. The third, last one for today was the Syretsko-Pecherskaya line, the stations of which were opened in 1989, although it began to be built eight more years before. The newest line connected the historical central and newly built southern Kiev. Kharkivskaya metro station was built literally in the center of the new urban area and commissioned in 1994.
Subway map
There were few first stations, and passengers knew them all by heart. But their number increased, transplant stations appeared, and there was an urgent need to clearly show all the metro stations in Kiev. The scheme of today's metro of the capital of Ukraine looks like this:
The red Svyatoshinsko-Brovarskaya 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, greenest “Syretsko-Pecherskaya” includes only sixteen stations, but it is the longest - about twenty-four kilometers.
Stations today
Initially, the stations bore the names, the use of which was required in the country of the victorious revolution. But after independence, the majority was renamed. The stations received historical or new names 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 station names and places for transfers to the city electric train. But despite the large volume of new construction and the significant flow of people (more than five hundred million passengers a year), the residents of the capital of Ukraine want to get new metro stations in Kiev, which will allow them to travel on the most convenient public transport without transfers.