The Ukrainian Railways (the Ukrzaliznytsia company) moved the zero kilometer, from which the kilometers of all railways in the country are counted, to Kyiv. This symbolic step took place on 21 February.
Previously, the mileage of railways in Ukraine was counted from Moscow, the capital of the USSR, which included Ukraine.
“We used to see kilometer marks at the main railway station of the country, where 856/857 km were marked. Why? Because for about a hundred years we had a calculation of a zero kilometer from Russia. We put an end to this. Now the zero kilometer of Ukrainian railways is here in Kiev , at the Central Station,” said Oleksandr Kamyshin, Chairman of the Board of Ukrainian Railways.
According to the press service of the company, it has launched a program called “Iron Ukrainization”, during which it intends to abandon the names and images of the times of the Russian Empire and the USSR on any railway transport facilities. “It’s time to finally get rid of the Soviet and imperial past, which has been impregnating the Ukrainian railway for more than 100 years, to throw into the dustbin of history everything that binds us and hinders our development,” Kamyshin said.
The campaign is in line with the recent changes in the topography of many Ukrainian cities, which, after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, began to abandon not only Soviet, but also any names associated with Russia.
The Ukrainian railway has attracted attention in the last year both by its work on the evacuation of civilians in the country, and by special flights, on which – in the absence of air traffic – foreign leaders arrive in Kiev. The day before, for example, US President Joe Biden arrived in Kyiv by train.
source: svoboda
