You're reading: Underground Kyiv is scary, thrilling

Nothing in the appearance of Fedir Ivanov - a tall and fair-haired 19-year-old Ukrainian - gives away his unusual hobby.

Twice a week Ivanov travels to underground Kyiv and strolls the city’s sewage and drain pipe networks, abandoned laboratories, plants and old, forgotten bunkers.

“Underground shelters attract me with their enigmatic atmosphere,” he says. “Many underground locations have unusual design or old architecture.”

An explorer’s passion lures him underground every weekend. Once, he was so enchanted by the labyrinths below that he spent five hours there.

On a September day, the Kyiv Post went underground to explore the hidden part of Kyiv with Ivanov.

“The underground landscapes are completely different from what we are used to in the city. You go and never know where your way will lead you,” he says as he we walk along the 19th century drainage system that stretches for 800 meters along the Dnipro River in Kyiv.

Exploration of the undergrounds – or digging – is a hobby for the brave, or at least those not afraid of the dark or confined places. Here, everything seems strange. Echoes distort the sound so much in some places that it is difficult to hear the person next to you. In other parts of the tunnels, a small stream sounds like a giant waterfall.

The temperature of 14-15 C doesn’t change around the year. Just like in natural caves, in Kyiv’s drainage tunnels one can see stalactites and stalagmites.

Underground Kyiv is vast – the sewage and water supply networks along with the city’s drainage system reach thousands of kilometers of subterranean labyrinths.

Three companies and district housing offices are responsible for the drainage system, water supply and waste water networks. Kyiv’s entire drainage system, managed by Private Corporation Special Administration of Landslide Underground Works, is more than 200 kilometers long. The length of a waste water pipe system, controlled by the Municipal Corporation Avtodor, is nearly 827 kilometers, while Private Corporation Kyivvodokanal is responsible for 2,653 kilometers of the city’s drainage chain.

Ivanov started exploring underground tunnels in the city five years ago. Today, most of the Kyiv’s tunnels are very familiar to him. In the one-hour-long walk underground with the Kyiv Post correspondent, he never lost his way – with no help of maps or GPS, which doesn’t work underground anyway.

Ivanov’s first underground walk failed. He was caught by a security guy of one of the abandoned factories in Kyiv. Since then, Ivanov’s biggest fear is to meet other people underground. “At best, security guards may give us a chance to get away. Under the worst circumstances, they may call the police,” he says.

Police and security people are not the only risks. A bigger one is getting lost. He never goes underground without an extra flashlight.

“If a battery dies it will be difficult to find the way back,” he explains. “A friend of mine, whose flashlight stopped working for some reason, had to wander in pitch darkness for six hours before he finally got to the surface.”

The inevitable questions about mutant rats and ghosts living underground make him smile.

“I’ve spent many hours in the Kyiv’s tunnels and I can assure you – nobody except bats live there,” he says.

To stay safe, Ivanov recommends to never go underground if the sky is cloudy.

“When it starts raining the water level in the underground rivers rises in just a few minutes and people wouldn’t have time to get outside,” he says. “Every year at least one person drowns in the underground river Klov.”

In Kyiv, such urban exploration was already popular during the Soviet times. Now, local diggers are a closed group of nearly 40 members. Yet their community is not friendly as no digger shares their underground maps or interesting findings with others.

“Diggers want privacy. They don’t like sharing their favorite underground places with others,” Ivanov explains.

Next he plans to explore the Kyiv underground river Hlybochytsya, which flows under Podil district between Verkhniy Val and Nyzhniy Val Streets. But his big dream is to walk through the Paris catacombs.

“All cities’ underground landscapes differ from each other just like their land panoramas,” he says.

Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]