Every day, thousands of Kyiv residents ride the metro line beneath Podil without ever suspecting that the concrete tunnel lining above their heads is older than their parents. The tunnel between Tarasa Shevchenka and Pochaina stations was built between 1978 and 1980, under difficult hydrogeological conditions — and after more than four decades of groundwater pressure, vibration, and daily loads, it has finally earned a full overhaul. That overhaul has become one of Kyiv’s biggest infrastructure tenders this week.
For the city, it’s a rare case of infrastructure hidden underground being discussed loudly and well in advance — rather than after an accident. That’s exactly why this story matters not only to passengers, but to everyone working with government clients: it shows what a civilized path from site survey to an actual construction site should look like.
Prozorro tender: how much a full metro tunnel overhaul costs
The Kyiv Metro municipal enterprise has announced a tender for the reconstruction of this section. The procurement appeared in the Prozorro system on August 7, 2026 — becoming one of the largest tenders in urban underground infrastructure in recent memory.
Key figures of the project:
- Cost of works under the tender — UAH 1.76 billion including VAT
- Planned completion time — up to 23 months, nearly two years
- The tunnel was built between 1978 and 1980
- The survey confirmed loss of waterproofing integrity and cracks in the tunnel walls
- Works cover relocating utility networks, soil reinforcement, restoring the tunnel lining, and renewing the track superstructure
- Part of the work will be carried out from the surface, through open excavation pits — the section lies at a shallow depth of 6–9 meters
- The overhaul is split into two stages, with the second including installation of technical monitoring systems
- Under the project, train service on the line is not planned to be suspended
Why the Tarasa Shevchenka–Pochaina tunnel couldn’t withstand time
Engineers’ explanation is fairly simple. The tunnel was designed and built back in Soviet times, when the standards accounted for entirely different loads and traffic intensity than today. Podil’s groundwater is among the most difficult in Kyiv, and it has been wearing down the structure’s waterproofing for years. Once the survey recorded cracks and signs of water ingress, the decision to carry out a full overhaul rather than a cosmetic repair became a matter of people’s safety, not budget — for everyone who rides underground every day.
It’s a fairly typical story for underground infrastructure in post-Soviet cities: a facility operates for years without visible problems, until a scheduled survey shows that its safety margin is nearly exhausted. The only difference is how quickly the client responds to such warning signs — and in this case, the response was swift.
What this means for Kyiv residents and for the construction industry
Most importantly, the metro will keep running without interruption despite the scope of the works. For the contractor, this means more complex logistics and tighter schedules — but millions of passengers won’t even notice the repairs during their daily commute.
For the industry as a whole, it’s a telling case. A government client is willing to fund not cosmetic patchwork but a full technical survey and complete overhaul of a complex underground facility — provided there is a transparent tender and a well-justified design. That sequence — survey, design, open tender, and only then the construction site — is exactly the standard still missing at many of the country’s infrastructure facilities.
Decisions like this rarely make bold headlines, but they’re also part of the larger reconstruction effort: quiet, underground, built to last for decades. And it’s tenders like this one — transparent, well-justified, with a clear technical brief — that build trust in government clients across the construction industry.
Source: Ekonomichna Pravda
