Clear water was flowing at the bottom of the underground passage, the city council said. Local historians say the Mlynivka River once ran through the area more than a century ago, with small bridges built across it.
Deputy Mayor Mykhailo Zhuravchak took interest in the discovery and invited urban explorers Andrii Ryshtun and Vladyslav Hrynchyshyn, known for their research of Lviv’s underground structures, to examine the site.
The tunnel was built during the Austro-Hungarian period using red brick, the specialists said. It measures about two meters high and one meter wide, with spring water flowing along the bottom.
The explorers moved in both directions — with the flow of water and against it — to determine how far the tunnel extends underground.
“There is some daylight inside the tunnel and plenty of fresh air coming through storm drain grates,” the researchers said. “We saw only two rats. There were also utility pipes that we had to climb over.”
The scale of the explored section can be assessed from an observation deck currently under construction on the roof of Secondary School No. 1, the city council said. It will become the second-highest viewing point in Stryi after the local church.