Yes, they are used as air raid shelters, but they were designed like that in the first place. Some of them lie really deep - especially the ones in the city center.

Kyiv metro is one of the deepest in the world. We have one station that is 105 meters deep. So even with fast escalators, it feels like an eternity to go up and down there.

I was wondering if there’s something different about the escalator manufacturer or design. Like longer landing areas or boarding area with extended hand rails. If you had any familiarity with them.

That was standard across major Soviet cities.

They were running much faster than the “west” in 2015-2020 too, so I doubt that is the reason.

> Kyiv subway stations are also air raid shelters

When building them, they probably didn’t expect to be hiding from Russian attacks.