The "NKVD Underground Prison": Kyiv's Hidden Fortress Vaults

Kyiv has always been a fascinating city full of historic landmarks: the Motherland Monument, the Golden Gate, Khreshchatyk, the Singing Field, the Landscape Alley. You can find many unique places here, as long as you know where to look.

This time we want to tell you about a place discovered relatively recently, whose story will intrigue every history lover: the so-called NKVD underground prison.

News of the site first appeared in 2007, when staff of the Kyiv Fortress museum made a stunning discovery: they found the entrance to a tunnel leading into a secret underground space which, according to the museum's historians, had been used as a prison.

According to the museum's director, Viacheslav Kulinich, the find came about almost by chance. In 1918, a massive explosion took place at the Pechersk artillery depots, and afterward an airplane was sent up to photograph the blast site. On one of these photographs, which Kulinich found in an old newspaper, part of a wall of the Vasylkiv fortification could be seen, preserved in its original state. It was this find that helped the researchers locate the site.

Of course, old photographs were not the only thing that led to the discovery. Most of the credit goes to Kyiv builders who, while constructing yet another upscale residential complex in Pechersk, broke through an old wall and exposed the casemated flanks of the Vasylkiv fortification.

It was thanks to Kulinich that the fortress earned its grotesque nickname in the Ukrainian media, "the NKVD underground prison." He put forward the theory that the site had been specially equipped for holding and torturing prisoners, and even claimed that tanks found on the grounds had held acid used to dispose of the prisoners' bodies.

We cannot refute this theory, but there is not enough evidence to support it either. It seems more likely that the fortress once served as a transit point and depot: according to archival documents found by Kyiv historians, the structure had an extensive network of underground passages for people and wide tunnels that allowed two-way vehicle traffic. These tunnels stretch for about 4 kilometers in total, which suggests that considerable resources went into building and maintaining the site.

Researchers also found casemates that were most likely used as storerooms, a caponier and two towers from which the surrounding area may once have been covered by fire. In the 1950s, the approaches to the moat and casemates were covered with slabs and buried under earth so that the surrounding buildings could be built.

Unfortunately, the passage into the vaults was later sealed with steel bars and access to the fortification was closed. Entry to the underground site is prohibited, so the find cannot be studied. Even Kyiv archaeologists were unable to obtain official permission, so the only people who saw the fortress with their own eyes were those present when it was discovered.

So we have to make do with photographs taken at the time. But if you would like to at least visit the place where the "NKVD underground prison" was found, head to the intersection of John McCain Street (formerly Ivana Kudri Street), Kniaziv Ostrozkykh Street (formerly Chyhorina Street) and Perspektyvna Street.

We hope that historians will eventually uncover the true purpose of the Vasylkiv fortification and that it will get a friendlier name than "the NKVD underground prison." Then again, to be honest, it is precisely this name that draws young people and tourists to the site, so perhaps it is best left as it is. We would certainly love to visit it ourselves!