Kharkiv subway is ready for Christmas:
It’s always pretty, but particularly so around the holidays.
Ukrainian subway is nothing like the scuzzy, nasty NYC subway. You feel like a human being and not a piece of refuse when you take it.
Christmas-ready
Clarissa's Blog 
The subways in both Taipei and Seoul are clean, well-run Metros that make you “feel like a human being and not a piece of refuse when you take it”. If you need a clean public restroom in Taipei, look no further than the Metro stations. ’nuff said about the analogous situation in NYC.
I never took the Lisbon subway but did take their suburban trains; I can attest that public announcements on the Lisbon train are infinitely more intelligible (despite my not knowing a word of Portuguese) than the garbled squawks on the New York subway. Lisbon hired some woman who must have been an elocution coach, then recorded her saying things like “Oeiras” and “Carcavelos” at high fidelity, then broadcast them so clearly that I can hear both place names in my mind to this day.
So Ukraine is not alone in knowing how to do this kind of thing properly. I don’t know why the U.S. is so awful at this, though I have speculative and angry hypotheses about it.
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“Ukraine is not alone in knowing how to do this kind of thing properly”
I think the point is that this is a city being shelled regularly by russian aggressors and where the subway may have to be used as bomb shelters… and they still look nice.
Let’s hope that the subway can remain a subway as much as possible until the russians are driven back to their own cursed land.
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Yes, this is a bomb shelter. The famous Kharkiv Christmas tree was moved to the subway, too, because people want to celebrate but they know it’s dangerous to congregate outdoors because that’s where Russians will immediately hit with missiles.
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I always liked the Boston subways. My sister would say: “All the romance of the NY subways, but without getting mugged.”
I love the way the lights reflect in the floor in this photo.
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“Yes, this is a bomb shelter.”
This point is very well taken!
I had inadvertently overlooked that aspect of the situation, because the grace under pressure being exhibited by the Ukrainians is so impressive that it kept me from thinking “bomb shelter”. They simply move Christmas underground and go on celebrating, with savoir faire, not letting Russia keep them from joy.
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