Classroom lesson · Cricova Underground City · 🇲🇩 Moldova

Cricova Underground City

A whole city of tunnels carved beneath the hills

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Deep under the hills near Chișinău, there is an underground city with over 120 kilometres of tunnels. The tunnels were carved through soft white rock called limestone, and they are so wide and tall that small electric vehicles drive through them like streets. It feels like exploring a city that has been hidden underground.

Tell me more

The tunnels at Cricova were made when people cut out big blocks of limestone to use for building houses above ground. Over many years, this left behind an enormous maze of corridors — wide enough for two cars to pass each other and tall enough to stand in comfortably. The temperature inside stays cool and steady all year round, no matter how hot or cold it is outside.

The underground streets are given names just like real city streets above ground. There are intersections, turnings, and even small squares where corridors meet. If you walked down every single tunnel without stopping, you would be walking for the same distance as a journey from one side of Luxembourg to the other.

The rock walls glow a warm cream-white colour when lights shine on them, making the tunnels feel almost magical. Some sections have high curved ceilings that make your voice echo. People from all over the world come to marvel at how something so big and interesting can be hidden completely out of sight beneath ordinary hills.

Because the underground temperature never changes, the tunnels create a perfectly still, quiet world. The air is fresh and cool even in summer. Children who visit often say it is like being inside a giant ant nest — but with paved roads and electric lights.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01If you could design an underground city, what would you put in it? What would be the same as an above-ground city, and what would be different?
  2. 02The tunnels stay cool all year. Why do you think the temperature underground does not change as much as the temperature above ground?
  3. 03How do you think workers felt the first time they realised how large the tunnels had become?
  4. 04Can you think of any other famous underground spaces — natural or man-made — anywhere in the world?
Try this

Classroom activity

Draw a map of your own underground city from above, as if you were a bird looking down through the earth. Give each tunnel a name, add some special rooms or squares, and mark where the entrance is. Share your map with a partner and describe a route through it.