Lines and Stations

1. The Kharkiv Metro is the metro system that serves the city of Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine. The metro was the second in Ukraine (after Kiev) and the sixth in the USSR when it opened in 1975.

2. Initial plans for a rapid transit system in Kharkiv were made when the city was a capital of the Ukrainian SSR. However, after the capital moved to Kiev in 1934 and Kharkiv suffered heavy destruction during World War II, a rapid transit system was dropped from the agenda. In the mid-1960s, the existing mass transit system became too strained, and construction of the metro began in 1968.

3. Seven years later on August 23, 1975, the first eight-station segment of 10.4 kilometres was put into use. It is claimed that the metro does not have the beautiful and excessive decorations that stations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.Metros show, yet they do make the best of mid-1970s and later styles.

4. Currently, the Kharkiv Metro consists of 3 lines, 29 stations, and 39.6 kilometres of tracks. The stations arranged in a typical Soviet design of a triangle, that is, three radial lines crossing in the city centre. Open from 5:30 in the morning until midnight, it has a daily passenger traffic of over one million passengers.

5. Because of the city's uneven landscape, the metro stations are located on varying depths. Six of the system's 29 stations are deep level stations and the remaining rest are shallow. Of the former, all but one are pylon type, and the latter are of column type. The shallow stations comprise fourteen pillar-trispans and eight single vaults. Kharkiv was the first metro to exhibit the single vault design of the shallow type.The metro is served by two depots which have a total of 320 carriages forming 59 five-carriage trains (all of the platforms are exactly 100 metres long).

6. The metro is directly subordinated to the Ministry of Transport of Ukraine. Unlike the Kiev Metro, Kharkiv is not privatised and owned by a municipal company. In 2009, the Ministry transferred the metro to the city administration.

7. In preparation for the upcoming Euro 2012 football championship, the metro is installing bilingual announcements – Ukrainian and English – for its trains. The announcements are due to start operating in April 2012.