City Council: Kharkiv Plans to Open Kindergarten Underground

KHARKIV, Dec 4 — Children can go to kindergarten at a metro station for the first time in Ukraine during the war. The City Council Executive Committee supported organizing the educational process in groups for preschool children at metro stations.

Education at the metro in groups for children with a short stay will begin on January 6, 2024. The kindergarten will operate at Universitet, Peremoha, Akademika Pavlova, Metrobudivnykiv and Traktornyi Zavod metro stations.

Starting from September 4, 2023, education for schoolchildren was launched at five metro stations in Kharkiv. This was due to the inability to ensure safety from Russian missile strikes in the city’s schools.

Read the story: Education at the Metro. How children in Kharkiv celebrated Knowledge Day underground.

The existing shelters in Kharkiv schools do not meet state building standards and cannot guarantee survival if a missile hits the building.

The flying time of an S300 ballistic missile from the border in the Belgorod region is 40–50 seconds, and even if the school has certified shelters, it is impossible to get all the children into the bomb shelter during this short time.

The air raid alarm in Kharkiv is often activated after a missile attack. This happens because the warning system does not have time to respond to rapid Russian ballistic missile attacks.

Photo: Board with Kharkiv metro stations and a school classroom underground / Credit: Denys Glushko, Gwara Media

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