Todd Bennett Photography: Journey to the Center of Kyiv

Obolon Station

The weather helped me decide to take a new photographic approach on my recent trip to Ukraine. It was cold and a little rainy at times and most of the trees had lost their leaves.

Not the best conditions for taking photos.

So, I decided to head underground.

I had become enamored with the Metro stations in Kyiv on my previous visits, each one seemed to be unique and beautiful in its own right. Even the Soviet-era themes had a simplistic beauty to them, from the mosaics of the Princes of Kyiv at Zoloti Vorota to the sculpted busts of famous Ukrainian scientists and writers at Universytet.

As my friend Olena worked, I grabbed a handful of metro tokens and my iPhone and set off.

Kyiv's Metro is a bargain compared to US subways. For 10 Hryvnia, you get 5 plastic blue tokens. Entrance to the Metro costs one token. When you consider the current exchange rate is 13 Hryvnia to $1, my three day journey to the center of Kyiv cost less than a Magic Snail Latte. (Magic Snail is my Ukrainian Starbucks where a large latte costs less than $2.)

The Metro consists of over 50 stations on three lines: the Red, the Green and the Blue. Constructed started after World War II and was the third rapid transit system built in the Soviet Union. It currently has the record for the deepest station in the world which is the Arsenalna station.

I didn’t make it to all of the stations. Some I bypassed due to the time of day, like the Dnipro station which overlooks the Dnieper River and has a beautiful view at sunrise. (Somehow I couldn’t get myself to get up that early.) Others, like the newer outdoor stations, start to look very similar in construction.

By any means, this project is far from complete and, luckily, I don’t consider this my last visit to Kyiv. Besides, work has started on a fourth line which should be completed in the next few years. And that means more stations to explore.