Going down...WAY down!

On our way to visit the Lavra Caves Monastery, Theresa and I first had what, if not actually a religious experience, certainly could make a person GET religion: we traveled on the Kiev Metro. 

Actually, the Metro itself is fine. It is getting down to it that is the exciting part. The tunnels are extremely deep underground to get beneath the river, which flows in a sort of wide canyon through the hills of Kiev.

So you get to the Metro trains by plummeting hundreds of feet, down on the longest and fastest escalators we have ever seen. And I do mean plummeting: both of us nearly fell over backwards on our first ride as we stepped onto the stairs and were jerked forward and down at a startling speed. Hang on, folks, and watch out for whiplash! 

And then, after what seems like an eternity, you arrive at the bottom, and face the opposite challenge -- getting off. It was a little leaving a ski lift without skis. (Just take a look at the photo. Those people on the right aren't fuzzy because the camera is out of focus; they are just whizzing past, going up as we are going down.)

As it happens, our friends from Wikipedia tell us that the metro station where we got off to go see the caves, named Arsenalna, is 346 feet deep -- and one of the deepest subway stations in the world. At that one, you actually take two of these long, fast escalators...and you begin to wonder whether, when you reach the bottom, people will be speaking Chinese (or whatever is on the opposite side of the Earth from Kiev).