Getting Around Kharkov

Clothes sizing and customer service aside, have I told you how awesome Kharkov is? What a city!!!!

Пiвденний вокзал (English: southern train station). September 2011.

The park in front of Пiвденний вокзал. Again, September. The landscape is a bit more barren nowadays.

A government building bordering the park & train station.

It gets even better..... check out the inside of the train station-

Does your local train station look this fancy? Didn't think so!

Did I mention the pigeons? They're everywhere!

More stunning architecture!...yet, sadly, don't expect the (pay) restrooms to look this nice. Because they don't. You have been warned.

 The train station connects to the metro. Kharkov has a great metro; big enough to cover a lot of territory, but not large enough to get lost on. 3 lines, 29 stations, open about 5:30 AM to midnight, and it all only costs 2 grivna (about 25 cents).

The only thing....you'd better brush up on your Russian. I mean Ukrainian. No, wait...you'd better work on both. You see, all the signs and on board announcements are in Ukrainian. BUT. Lots of people refer to the stops in Russian, not Ukrainian. Sometimes the words are almost the same: Холодна Гора and Холодная Гора. Sometimes they are not. It took me a month to figure out that Радянська and Советская were the same station.

Can you read this?

I'm so glad I already know Russian!

Some of the stations are rather plain. Some are gorgeous, with chandeliers and other creative forms of lighting, stained glass windows, and so on. I plan to photograph all the stations eventually. At this point I only have these photos of the rather plain Ботанічний сад (Botanical Garden), taken late at night.

Anyways, this is one of my favorite things about Kharkov- the metro. Thanks for reading along : )