After the expansion of the metro to Troyeshchyna in Kyiv, the second urban legend may be the construction of a metro to Vinogradar. Money has been allocated for the project, but there are no plans to open new stations.
The construction of the metro to Vinogradar has officially been paused, and the project itself risks turning into a meme, similar to the legendary metro to Troeshchina. The municipal enterprise “Kiev Metro” terminated the contract for the construction of a new line with the company that built all the capital’s subway stations – JSC “Kievmetrostroy”. Now the capital’s officials are looking for a new contractor and declare their intentions to return 4 billion hryvnia, although the first deputy chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration, Mikhail Povoroznik, admitted that there is almost nothing left of Kievmetrostroy.
Metro before 1991
The history of the metro to Vinohradar is not as long as the legendary “metro to Troeshchina,” but it also goes back more than one decade. It first appeared on metro maps in Vinohradar in 1985. It was planned to build two stations - Vinogradar and Prospekt Pravdy, and later the Mostitskaya station appeared there. Around the same time - in the 80s of the last century - Kiev residents were lured to the new area with promises that the metro would be here by 1991 (according to other sources - by 1992). And indeed, in 1981, construction of the line began, but in just 8 years only three stations were opened, and all in the city center: Zoloti Vorota, Palace of Sports and Mechnikova (now Klovskaya).
Well, from the metro to Vinogradar, as in that song by “Scriabin”: dude, they abandoned us. They forgot about continuing the thread. The late Deputy Chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration Ivan Saliy, in a long-standing conversation with the author of these lines, noted that building a subway from the Syrets station in the direction of Vinogradar is not economically feasible.
The new episode of the construction series came during the presidency of the twice-unconvicted Viktor Yanukovych. A new tradition has begun to take shape, when every head of the capital must at least promise a new metro fairy tale. The chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration, Alexander Popov, appointed by the “regionals”, promised to begin construction of the metro to Vinogradar either in 2012 or 2013. However, since the opening of the Teremki metro station at the end of 2013, Kiev residents have continued to contemplate the future of the metro to Vinogradar exclusively on paper plans.
From the first tunnel to the “metro to Troeshchina”
In 2017, the topic of building a metro to Vinogradar came to life. Mayor Vitali Klitschko promised to start construction even in December.
“According to preliminary estimates, we will be able to open the Mostitskaya and Prospekt Pravdy stations within three years,” said the long-time head of the capital, but he was unable to do so.
In January 2018, the Kyiv Metro announced a tender for the construction of a section of the Syretsko-Pecherskaya metro line with an electric depot in the Podolsk region (the section from the Syrets station to the Prospekt Pravdy station with two stations (Mostytska and Prospekt Pravdy) and a section of the fork branch towards the Vinogradar station. After lengthy battles, at the end of the same year it was won by the company that builds all the metropolitan subway stations - Kievmetrostroy.
New metro construction on the “green line” started in March of the following year, 2019, and already in 2021, “Kyivmetrostroy” and the capital authorities, despite Covid delays, reported on the completion of the construction of the first of four planned tunnels, as well as progress on the open section.
However, before the construction had time to gain momentum, clouds began to gather over Kievmetrostroy. Since November 2019, the company’s managers have been under criminal investigation on suspicion of fraud. The company began experiencing delays in wages, and a corporate conflict was raging within the company. But the capital’s authorities continued to convince that there would certainly be a metro to Vinogradar, although not in the promised 2021. The dates were gradually moved first to 2023 and then to 2024-2025. And then provided that there are no force majeure events.
“There are questions with documentation, there is an action plan, there is funding, there is a clear algorithm of actions, and on the basis of this they gave me information: we are already planning to open this metro in the spring,” noted the mayor of Kyiv Vitaliy Klitschko in the summer of 2023.
The head of the capital's subway, Viktor Braginsky, clarified that the trains will start operating in 2025 and noted that adjustments to the project are ongoing. True, this was before the termination of the contract with Kievmetrostroy.
“Tentatively, in September construction work will begin using updated documentation. The goal is to build two metro stations on Vinogradar by the end of 2024, and to carry out commissioning work in the first quarter of 2025 to start train traffic,” explained the head of the Kiev Metro public utility in the summer of 2023.
But instead of large-scale construction, the author of these lines over the past year has mainly seen weeds and frozen equipment on the site where the Prospekt Pravdy or Varshavskaya metro station should one day appear (or who knows what name the Kyiv City Council will vote on by then). A similar picture is on the highway on the way to the indicated station. Builders and equipment occasionally worked on the future section between Mostitskaya and Prospekt Pravdy stations.
But even if literally tomorrow, by some miracle, a lot of equipment appears on these sites and builders are found, then it would be impossible even technically to meet the promised deadlines.
The Galina tunnel boring complex, which was used for the construction of the first tunnel of the section from the Syrets metro station to the Mostitskaya station, needs maintenance, and then it should be reassembled. And this does not take a day or two. It is extremely unlikely that the capital will receive a new, or better yet, more than one such car. Construction of the tunnel, taking into account the quicksand on part of the site and the experience of building the first tunnel from the Syrets metro station to the Mostitskaya station, is approximately 9 months to a year. On the site that was built using the open method - from Mostitskaya station to Pravdy Avenue - for months, as they say, the horse did not lie down.
After the termination of the contract for the construction of the metro to Vinogradar with Kievmetrostroy, it is generally inappropriate to talk about any terms. Firstly, according to the head of the capital’s subway, Viktor Braginsky, adjustments to the project are still ongoing. Secondly, a new tender will be announced for work with an unpredictable duration. And the construction estimate itself will probably have to be recalculated, because prices don’t even think about going down. Plus a purely technical question: what condition will the first tunnel from the Syrets station to the future Mostitskaya station be in?
In addition, termination of the contract should resolve financial issues with Metrostroy. Deputy Chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration Nikolai Povoroznik admitted that there was almost nothing left of “Kievmetrostroy”, but assured that the city would not have significant financial losses: “I would not pose the question that way. It is necessary to evaluate the work performed and what is documented there. A lot of work has been completed and not yet confirmed. Experts will do all this, and then decisions will be made, including legal ones. There are also many criminal cases, funds in accounts have been seized, the beneficiaries are all known. I don’t think there will be big losses.”
The process of construction “divorce” may not be quick. According to the Yourcontrol system, an appeal to recover more than 180 million hryvnia from Kievmetrostroy is scheduled for consideration in January 2024. “Kievteploenergo” wants to recover another 3 million from metro construction workers in court. “Kiev Metro” itself wants, in turn, to oblige its long-term partner to “take certain actions.” What specific actions are being discussed is not reported.
In a situation where stories about how much could have been allocated for drones, which are vital at the front, are becoming a trend on social networks, if they had saved on something not critical, we can hardly expect public approval of spending additional billions on the metro. Of course, it has been needed for a long time, but now survival comes first. In addition, we should not forget that mobilization continues, and builders are regularly drafted into the army. Therefore, for now we can say one thing: “Careful, the doors are closing. The next station is the unknown.”
