The Funicular in Action

Its Fun, Funny, even Funky. The Funicular is a unique nineteenth century trolley system that runs from the Poshtovo Ploscha Metro Station (which is almost at elevation of the Dnipro River) up the steep wooded hillside to the top of the Volodymyrska Hill Park. It is one of my favorite attractions in Kyiv, as it evokes the period of late Tsarist Rule of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. There are two cars, each suspended from a huge steel cable, like counterweights on a grandfather's clock. Thus when one car ascends from the riverside station, the companion car at the top of the hill begins a smooth descent. The cars are both custom constructed at a nunique angle so that the passengers in each of the compartments are always sitting or standing upright. The ride is very smooth and very quiet, hardly disturbing the birds sitting on the boughs of the surrounding trees. In fact, one has this surreal sense of detachment, leaving the crowded Metro and the busy Kyiv sreet and then boarding the Funicular as if entering a separate peaceful world. So far I have ridden the Funicular six times, as it is a very convenient way for me to get either to the Volodymrska Hill Park, to the Monument to Prince Volodymyr the Great (the "Baptizer"), to St. Michael's of the Golden Domes, or to the Andriysky Spusk.