The Kharkiv Metro ( or ) is a rapid transit system serving the city of Kharkiv. The operational length of its three lines is approximately . The system comprises 30 stations, including three underground interchange hubs located in the city center. The system transported 223 million passengers in 2018 (up from 212.85 million in 2017).
Following its opening on 23 AugustThe official opening ceremony was held on 22 August, with the Metro system being opened to the general public on 23 August. 1975,Official Web Site (24 June 2019) the Kharkiv Metro became the sixth metro system in the USSR (after the Moscow Metro, Leningrad Metro, Kyiv Metro, Tbilisi Metro, and Baku Metro) and the second in Ukraine.
The metro system is owned by the municipal enterprise Kharkiv Metro, established in 2009 through the reorganization of the former state enterprise Kharkiv Metro.
The company employs 2,120 workers (as of 2012). It operates two electric depots: TCh-1 "Nemyshlianske" and TCh-2 "Saltivske".
The primary source of financial revenue is its core activity — passenger transportation. Additional income is generated from non-core activities, including leasing retail space and advertising areas, advertising services (such as station monitors and station branding), as well as subsidies and compensatory payments from the municipal and state budgets.
During the Soviet period, the metro was named after Vladimir Lenin.
Kharkiv Metro operations were suspended on 17 March 2020 to prevent COVID-19 spread. To compensate for the lack of a metro, the city administration implemented a series of changes in the tram, trolleybus, and bus routes of the city. The metro was reopened on 25 May 2020; face masks or respirators were mandated to wear for passengers.Subway resumes work in Kyiv, Kharkiv: new safety rules, explained (Photo), UNIAN (25 May 2020)
From 24 February to 24 May 2022, following the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, metro services were temporarily suspended, and stations were used as bomb shelters. Since May 2022, the metro has been operating normally.
History
Background
After the end of the World War II, Kharkiv underwent large-scale reconstruction, including extensive new construction. Numerous new residential districts were built, significantly increasing the city’s population. By the end of 1962, the city’s area exceeded 30,000 hectares, and its population surpassed 1 million residents.
As early as the 1950s, Kharkiv operated a large number of bus routes, along with well-developed tram and trolleybus networks equipped with modern rolling stock. Nevertheless, significant transportation problems continued to intensify.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the city underwent major changes in the layout of residential districts and industrial zones. Rapid population growth, intensive migration to newly developed housing areas, and a natural increase in mobility created serious challenges for passenger transportation. These issues highlighted the shortcomings of the city’s planning, as well as its street, road, and transport networks, which had developed historically.
The city’s radial layout, with narrow, winding streets lined with multi-story buildings, combined with its highly varied terrain—meandering rivers, deep ravines, and steep elevations—made it impossible to achieve a significant improvement in passenger transport using conventional surface transit. Considering the urgent need to ensure conditions for the normal functioning and development of Kharkiv and its agglomeration, the idea of constructing a high-capacity, rapid, off-street transport system was proposed—one that could bring residential districts closer in travel time to workplaces and the city center.
Calculations carried out by the Kharkivproekt Institute showed that neither a high-speed tram nor a monorail could adequately solve the city’s transport problems. Only a metro system could handle existing and projected passenger flows while maintaining sufficiently high travel speeds. The greatest challenge for urban transport was ensuring passenger movement along the city’s west–east axis, where the largest industrial enterprises, major residential districts, main nodes of suburban and intercity railway and road connections, and the central city area are located.
On 12 December 1962, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, , the First Secretary of the Kharkiv Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, proposed:
At first, the process was repeatedly delayed, but there was a general understanding that a metro system needed to be built in Kharkiv. The idea was most actively promoted by , Sobol’s successor as First Secretary, who raised the issue with the party leadership and secured approval. Soon after, Ruvim Lyubarsky, who later became the chief engineer for the technical and economic justification of the Kharkiv Metro, promoted the idea at the Kharkiv Metalist Palace of Culture. His presentations were highly successful, and the concept of the new construction gained popularity among the city’s residents. Previously, he had participated in the development of master plans for 20 cities in the USSR, as well as in the planning project for Kharkiv Oblast.
Three options for the new transport system were considered: a monorail, a high-speed tram, and a metro. The first option was immediately ruled out—Kharkiv’s complex urban layout, narrow streets, and tall buildings made it impossible to build a monorail. Based on this, the State Committee for Construction tasked the Kharkiv branch of the Giprogorad Institute (now Dipromisto) with preparing a “Consideration on the Necessity of Building a Metro”.
By 20 March 1963, the Executive Committee of the Kharkiv City Council approved the submitted drawings and proposals. Its conclusions, together with the engineers’ plans, were sent to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. The party leadership took interest in the idea and instructed the State Construction Committee of the Ukrainian SSR to prepare letters to the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR. On the basis of the ministers’ instructions, the Gosplan issued a proposal, but it concerned the construction of a high-speed tram in the city rather than a metro.
Kharkiv’s engineers and residents did not expect this turn of events. A high-speed tram would not have accommodated the growing passenger flows, its speed would not have been particularly high, and its construction would have required enormous funds. However, it was impossible to directly declare the absurdity of this idea, so the city’s engineers began presenting detailed arguments about the inefficiency of such a transport system and the necessity of building a metro.
Subsequently, the Derzhplan of the Ukrainian SSR instructed Kharkivproekt and other organizations to prepare a technical and economic report, which was completed. Later, the project was joined by the Institute of Complex Transport Problems under the USSR State Planning Committee, the Ministry of Transport Construction, the USSR State Planning Committee, and other institutes. Based on the results of this work, on 17 December 1965, the Council of Ministers of the USSR tasked the Ministry of Transport Construction with developing, in 1966, a construction plan for the first phase of the Kharkiv Metro—from Kharkiv-Pasazhyrskyi railway station to the Tile Factory, covering a distance of 20 km. This route was chosen because the greatest challenges for urban transport were the movement of workers to large industrial enterprises. The route also included the railway station and several bus terminals.
Design and planning
Control over the planned construction was assumed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR. By a resolution dated 25 January 1966, they tasked the Kharkiv Regional Committee of the CPU and the Regional Executive Committee, together with the Ministry of Transport Construction, to ensure the development of construction plans for the first phase of the metro.
The general design organization was assigned to the Metrogiprotrans Institute, with Mykola Bychkov appointed as the chief engineer. Other institutions also participated in designing the future line, including Khargiprotrans, Kyivmetproekt, Kharkivproekt, and approximately 30 others in total.
According to the technical and economic justification prepared by the Kharkivproekt Institute with the participation of Kyivmetproekt and Khargiprotrans teams, the route of the first phase of the Kharkiv Metro was planned along the city’s busiest diameter. The chief engineer of the metro’s feasibility study was R. E. Lyubarsky, Candidate of Technical Sciences, and the chief engineer of the design assignment was N. N. Bychkov.On 31 December 1965, at a meeting of the Bureau of the Kharkiv City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the Executive Committee of the Kharkiv City Council, the “Architectural and Planning Assignment for the Future Construction of the First Phase of the Metro in Kharkiv” was adopted. Initially, it was planned to open stations at 13 of the city’s busiest locations: Pivdennyi Vokzal, Komunalnyi Market, City Center, Levada, Central Stadium, Malyshev Factory, Turbine Factory, Kondytsioner Factory, Santekhzavod, Pivdenkabel Factory, KhTZ, Elektrotyazhmash, and the Tile Factory.
Even at the initial stage of planning, the future challenges became clear. Specialists from Metrogiprotrans noted that constructing shallow tunnels beneath the historic railway station building, with its two dozen mainline tracks, would be difficult, as would tunneling under the Lopan and Kharkiv rivers and the historic city center. The Kharkiv-Pasazhyrskyi station building was situated on weak clay soils, and its preservation was not guaranteed. Additionally, a site for an electric depot near the end of the first launch section had to be found. Ultimately, it was decided to extend the metro line toward Kholodna Hora, with the terminus at Sverdlov Street (now Poltavskyi Shlyakh), while the other end of the line was placed near the Elektrotyazhmash Factory.
The production of cartographic materials involved the Kharkivproekt Institute, the office of the chief architect, and the UkrNDIINTV Institute. Engineering and geological surveys were conducted by Ukrburvod, the Kharkiv Complex Geological Expedition of the Dniprogeology Trust, Khargiprotrans, Hydroproject, Teploelektroproekt, Pivdenhiproshakht, Pivdenhiproruda, Transvodobud, PromtransNDIproekt, Giprotraktorosilhospmash, Giprostal, KharkivGDINTI, VodokanalNDIproekt, and Ukrnaftogazrozvidka. Testing also involved Giprotsement and Ukrhiprokomunbud. Design work on external engineering networks, the reorganization of underground utilities, site development, and tram track relocation was carried out by Kharkivproekt, Energomerezproekt, and Ukrhiprokomunbud, together with specialists from the city’s municipal services.