What are the remarkable stations of the Kiev Metro?

The history of the Kiev metro can be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century, when the first attempts were made to design it. But those plans were destined to remain only on paper. The first stations of the Kiev Metro opened to passengers only in 1960. The radical reconstruction of the city's transport infrastructure was an integral part of the restoration of the city, which was badly damaged during the Great Patriotic War and the German occupation. The stations of the Kiev metro were built, mainly at the expense of the Union budget, with the involvement of specialists and engineering technologies of the Moscow School of Design and Construction of the Underground. The Kiev metro was the third in the country after Moscow and Leningrad.

Schematic diagram of the Kiev Metro

Since the opening of the first subway line has passed more than half a century. Without this type of transport it is already impossible to imagine modern Kiev. The map, the metro stations on which are distributed fairly evenly and in the center of the city, and along its outskirts, makes it possible to make sure of the correctness of the decisions taken in the post-war period on the basic scheme of the Kiev metro. There are ten administrative districts in the city, and you can get to any of them by metro. The project initially meant its further adjustment as the city developed along both banks of the Dnieper. Stations of the Kiev Metro, according to the original scheme, were located only on three lines. Further development of the Kiev Metro is carried out both in the continuation of these three lines, and in the creation of new ones. Currently, the Kiev Metro has five lines, one of which is being actively built, and the other is in the design stage.

Architectural and engineering features of the Kiev Metro

The decisive influence on how the stations of the Kiev Metro look like was rendered by the era in which they were designed and built. They can easily find similarities with architectural solutions of the Moscow and Leningrad subway stations. However, there are a number of features, one of which is the almost complete absence in Kiev of the ground vestibules of metro stations. Most often, the exit to the city from the metro is combined with an underground passage across the street. The lines have areas of very deep deposition, and those running along the surface of the earth. In the decorative decoration of the interiors of the stations, all trends and trends in the history of Soviet architecture are clearly traced. In order to observe all this, the attentive viewer needs a map of Kiev with metro stations. It is enough to know in what years these or those stations were built. And it is possible, as in the museum, to observe post-war lurid pomp and elements of Ukrainian national folklore, and the subsequent "struggle with architectural excesses," and the more organic and thoughtful stylistics of the last decades. But the metro in the Ukrainian capital continues to be built and designed. What will be the architectural appearance of the stations on the two new lines of the Kiev subway, we will be able to see in the near future.