Na Metro

Taking public transportation is always a fun way to get to know a city. (Granted, it's a crowded, sweaty, hot sort of fun.) I think there is much to be gleaned from looking at the design of the stations, the choice of advertisements, and other little things. So what have I learned from the Kiev metro?

-The Soviets were into practicality. Many metro stations in the city center are pretty far underground because they doubled as bomb shelters. One, Arsenalna, is the deepest subway station in the world. I'm told that the metro routes in St. Petersberg were designed not for the needs of civillians making commutes, but to military transport. (Although, to be fair, the American interstate system was designed for much the same reason.)

-The early Soviets wanted to communicate a sense of grandeur. Many of the original stations from the metro's 1960 opening here are among the prettiest I've ever seen. I've seen beautiful mosaics and relief carvings, and soon I hope to start being able to post pictures or them. That said, newer stations (farther from the city center) are all pretty standardized. This seems to hold true for the city at large. The Stalin-era architecture, especially on Khreshatik, is truly something to behold, but what a friend of mine once referred to as the "commie-villes" in the outskirts of the city consist of block after block of grey dour depressing skyscrapers. My friend Natalia (whose Stalin-era apartment I'm currently living in) explained that Stalin-era buildings were built to last, and I think they were also built to inspire. When walking around the other day, Brian (my partner in crime for the summer) pondered what we would think if great architectural achievements came from Hitler. I can't help but think that people will eventually forget the origin of art as long as it is good art... how many European cathedrals were built under a corrupt papacy? How beautiful buildings were built by brutal imperialists? Sometimes good, beautiful things can come from bad people; just as you have to learn at some point as you reach adulthood that good people can still do bad things sometimes.

-Language is a very complicated issue indeed. The Kiev metro opened in a time when it was encouraged to use local languages, so all stations and announcements were exclusively Ukrainian. As time went on, the Soviet Union pursued policies of russification, Kiev became a more ethnically Russian city, and the stations became more Russian. Now, a trip on the metro is a sign that you are in Ukraine and not in Russia, and don't you forget it. All the lessons from back home about the vocabulary one would need to understand metro announcements went out the window. I expected the doors to "zakruivaetsa," but here "sashinaetsa." I don't watch out for the "sledushuyu" (next) station, but for the "nastupna" station. I ended up making a mistake in class because I was thinking the word for a city square was "plosha," since my metro stop for class is called "Poshtova plosha." It was only then that I learned the reason metro announcements confused me so much was because they were not in fact in Russian.

And finally my favorite thing to be gleaned about Ukrainian culture from a trip of the Kiev metro:

-Ukrainians like furry creatures. The metro cars are equipped with small televisions that will announce the current and next stansiya upon arrival at the station. While moving, however, it will show practical information such as the weather and current exchange rates and funny videos lifted from Animal Planet. I've watched a parrot climb its owners trousers with its beak, a puppy chase balloons until each one popped, a cat get its head caught in a fish bowl. I find it quite endearing. :)