Kyiv Metro
The Kyiv Metro (, ) is a rapid transit system in Kyiv, Ukraine, owned by the Kyiv City Council and operated by the city-owned company Kyivskyi Metropoliten''.'' It was initially opened on 6 November 1960, as a single line with five stations. I ...
Kyiv
Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...
. The station was opened in 1971 as part of the second stage of the Sviatoshynskyi radius.
The station is located under the junction between the
Prospect Beresteiskyi
Prospect Beresteiskyi (, , ) is the second longest public roadway ( prospekt) in Kyiv, Ukraine. The roadway was created in the second half of the 20th century (1964) as part of the urbanized area of the Brest-Lytovske highway and was known as Br ...
and the Mykoly Vasylenka/Dehtiarivska streets, and having only one vestibule which is interlinked with subways allowing access to both sides of the intersection. The station, along with its two other neighbours on the same stage, was the first in Kyiv to be a shallow level design built by a cut and cover method, and the first to show the common pillar-trispan design.
Although pillar-trispans, were not new in Soviet Metro construction technology, most of the ones built prior to these stations, particularly in
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
with the layout of two rows of 40 pillars (resulting in the popular colloquial name ' (centipede)), were criticised for their lack of decorative innovation and originality, hence the almost identical appearances. Kyiv's first centipedes were built and opened when the official policy on aesthetic design in Soviet architecture was removed, and as a result the stations are all different and each has its own distinct image.
Beresteiska's design (architects B. Priymak, I. Maslenkov, V. Bohdanovsky and T. Tselikovska.) originates from its former name Zhovtneva (), which translated means October station, or in honour of the
October Revolution
The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...
. Its decoration consists of pillars faced with reflective metallic sheets, orange and black rows of ceramic tiles on the walls and red
granite
Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...
for the floor. Lighting is done by
fluorescent tube
A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, to produce ultraviolet and make a phosphor ...
s on the top of the pillars for the platform, and large circular niches on the ceiling of the central span with ten spiraling fluorescent tubes inside them.
The far end of the central platform has a large wall faced with pink marble that originally held a bronze bas-relief of
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
(work of sculptor B. Karlovsky), but this was removed in the early 1990s leaving an empty space that is now often occupied by advertisements. This influenced the architectural theme of the station which lost its key decoration. Prior to Russian language becoming official in the Metro during the 1980s, Russian press and media referred to this station as Zhovtnevaya (''Rus:'' ) instead of its standard translation - Oktyabrskaya (''Rus:'' ).
Because the current name relates to
Brest, Belarus
Brest, formerly Brest-Litovsk and Brest-on-the-Bug, is a city in south-western Belarus at the border with Poland opposite the Polish town of Terespol, where the Bug (river), Bug and Mukhavets rivers meet, making it a border town. It serves as ...
voters chose to rename the station Buchanska — referring to the
Bucha massacre
The Bucha massacre (; ) was the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war by the Russian Armed Forces during the fight for and occupation of the city of Bucha as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photographic and video ...
; other choices included Irpinska and Palianytsia — in a poll taken during the
Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
.
File:Beresteyska metro station Kiev 2010 02.jpg, Central hall
File:Beresteyska metro station Kiev 2010 03.jpg, Station platform
File:Beresteyska metro station Kiev 2010 04.jpg, The decoration door on the wall of the track; the pictured
hammer and sickle
The hammer and sickle (Unicode: ) is a communist symbol representing proletarian solidarity between industrial and agricultural workers. It was first adopted during the Russian Revolution at the end of World War I, the hammer representing wo ...