The historical center of Kiev is under the real mystical cover. They say that this city is almost one of the most mysterious places on the planet, where there is a transition from our world to another, parallel …
The XX century was unlucky for Kiev. During wars, revolutions, repressions, thousands of townspeople died or found themselves far from their hometown. The communist government destroyed not only people, but also hundreds of unique architectural monuments - churches, cathedrals, houses. So the City, as Mikhail Bulgakov simply and meaningfully called Kiev, has changed beyond recognition. True, there are still interesting houses, places that are not known as widely as the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra or St. Sophia Kievskaya, but without which it is difficult to imagine the historical center of the City.
Strange and mysterious
The peculiar hilly relief of the City pushed the Kiev architects to tricks during the construction, which gave rise to houses that had different storeys. The most famous of them is on Trehsvyatitelskaya Street, 11. You look at this house from the street side - an ordinary two-story mansion of the early XX century. However, as soon as you enter the entrance, you suddenly realize that the staircase goes not only up, but … and down! Entering the front door and going downstairs, you can go out into the courtyard. And only then it becomes clear that the building has as many as five floors. How can we not recall the tricks of the unclean, about the "bad apartment" described by the Kiev resident Bulgakov. They say that this house is not very habitable either. Perhaps that is why tenants are moving out of it and now almost all of it has turned into an office.
The entrance to the Rodzyako house is framed by two identical sculptures of girls with long hair.
Well, the buildings on the street Yaroslavov Val (Bolshaya Podvalnaya), 14a and 146, next to the famous Kievans' theater "Suzirya", are associated with a Kiev witch. These luxurious apartment buildings belonged to the rich man Leonid Rodzianko (cousin of the Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Empire Mikhail Rodzianko). The entrance to one of them - with a gray facade, where the bank is now - is framed by two identical sculptures of girls with long hair. They bear a portrait resemblance to a real person - the famous witch and fortuneteller Motrei Varnaly, famous in Kiev at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. It was she, they say, who predicted L. Rodzianko the impending troubles of the empire literally on the eve of the First World War. Leonid left for America in a prosperous 1913. Not everyone was so perspicacious …
Promotional video:
Roll call of evil spirits
On Gogolevskaya Street there is a house number 23, known to the people of Kiev as "House with Cats". On the facade of the building of the early XX century, you can really see two cats, two owls and … But about the most interesting - a little later. The apartment building in the Art Nouveau style with Gothic elements was created by the project of the remarkable Kiev architect Vladimir Bessmertny. The owner of the house, General Ferdinand Yagimovsky, was known as a weirdo who knew the devil. So, a large Gothic window on the first floor is framed by two bas-relief cats. On the second floor, we see eerie faces. And in the center are owls and again strange faces. The most interesting thing is upstairs, where passers-by are not looking. On the edge of the curly roof sits a real devil, though small, and makes a snide face. He looks … But where? In the distance, towards your brother, or girlfriend - call him (or her) whatever you want.
Facade of "House with Cats" on Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya Street.
After all, just a few blocks from the "House with Cats" is another wonderful mystical house in the Renaissance style. It rises on Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya Street, 8. It is very strange that not everyone pays attention to the cunningly grinning gargoyle on the corner of the house - a real monster in the style of the Notre Dame de Paris monsters. According to a Kiev legend, the owner of the house, spirit and warlock Joseph Rogovsky, ordered such a "decoration" to the architect Bobrusov. After all, it was in the corner apartment where Rogovsky himself lived that spiritualistic séances and meetings of very strange people of different ages and classes took place.
However, the "devilish" houses on Gogolevskaya and Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya are only two peaks of the ominous triangle that I discovered in my hometown. Its third peak, closing the ominous figure on the map of Kiev, is, of course, the famous "House with Chimeras" by architect Gorodetsky - a building with a strange fate that did not bring happiness to its residents, including Mr. Vladislav himself.
Chimeras of the architect
The history of the famous "House with Chimeras" is well known. Having bought a plot of land on the slope, Gorodetsky set out to build an unusual house there. His colleagues warned the architect that it was technically impossible: quicksand soils, elevation differences, steep slope … Everything made the plan impossible. However, Gorodetsky made a bet with famous architects Alexander Kobelev and Vladimir Leontovich that in two years he would be able to build a building using materials that were new for those times: cement and concrete. The architect won the bet and on the appointed day invited his friends and colleagues to taste the boar on a spit in his own apartment in a new house.
"House with Chimeras" - a building with a strange fate, which did not bring happiness to its residents.
The structure amazed everyone. According to Vladislav Gorodetsky's sketches, the Italian Elio Salya, who had lived in Kiev for a long time, decorated the facades and roofs made of reinforced concrete with fantastic sculptures made of high-quality cement. Elephants and rhinoceroses, roe deer and lizards, a crocodile, a panther gnawing an eagle, and a dragon sneaking up on an eagle, even a snake descending along the corner of a building - all fit on an extraordinary house. And on the roof sat strange frogs, naiads with nets, dangling their water lily leaves … So Gorodetsky, a passionate hunter, as if foreseeing his future safari in Africa, talked about him and his other travels. The same unimaginable decor of animal heads, seabed dwellers and even animal skulls is found inside the building, in the rooms and on the stairs.
Together, these decorations make a scary impression. The facade of the “House with Chimeras”, facing Bankova Street, 10, seems to be just the front side of a strange mansion. However, it is worth going around the building and looking at it from the side of the theater named after I. Franko, as it will appear as a multi-storey impregnable fortress. And rather gloomy, especially in gloomy weather. And the fate of the house is not very cheerful. The building brought the architect not profits, but losses, it was mortgaged and sold. After the revolution, the house was never residential, profitable. There were so many organizations in it …
Other riddles
The oddities of a small Bankova street do not end there. A stone's throw from the "House with Chimeras" there is the "House of the Weeping Widow" known to the people of Kiev. The facade of the building is facing the Krugluniversitetskaya street. They say that in this house even now on dark nights the shadow of one inconsolable widow walks. The house is uninhabited, so, probably, only security officers are frightened by the silhouette of a lady in empty corridors. It is interesting that the stone female faces on the facade of this Art Nouveau building "cry" for a long time after rain and in cloudy weather. Wet marks under the eyes of sculptural jewelry, even on dry days, confuse passers-by.
They say that the shadow of an inconsolable widow walks in this house even now on dark nights.
Now two more iconic houses in Kiev are being emptied and destroyed. Apparently, the evil spirits associated with these houses affect their fate.
Already familiar to us street Yaroslavov Val, 1 - it is at this address that the most famous building is located, which is called the "Baron's Castle" or "House of Baron Steingel". Baron Steingel, a wonderful person, really owned a house in Kiev, but neighboring, at number three. A prominent building on the corner, with a spire and fancy decorations, was built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Its gothic appearance and paired figures on the facade are striking - winged devils with arms-wings and legs-paws with claws. Bestial "faces" look evilly at passers-by. Once upon a time there was a Czech club in this house; Jaroslav Hasek used to come here.
They say that the tipsy Hasek somehow cursed the building and its past and future inhabitants. After the revolution, the apartments were turned into communal apartments, and the house began to collapse. So he stands, dilapidated, waiting for the owner.
"Castle of Richard the Lionheart" is a well-known house on the second most popular street in Kiev, Andreevsky Spusk. He was cursed in the hearts of the Petersburg architect Robert Marfeld, because the project of this building was stolen from him by a certain Dmitry Orlov. The dealer built a really beautiful house, but he also deceived the builders by not paying them. Only later did it become known about the curse of the author of the project. Unclean on Orlov's hand was shot by unknown persons at the doorstep of the "Castle". His widow hastily sold the apartment building, but to all subsequent owners, its tenants complained of terrible groans and creaks in the apartments at night. I myself was still a very young man in this house in the early 1970s, and I can confirm the eerie impression of the strange sounds in it. They saythe restless soul of the swindler Orlov haunts anyone … Nowadays, because of property disputes, the famous Kiev house is abandoned.
We have told only about some of the houses of the City, but how many mysteries are still concealed by capital Kiev …
Source: "Secrets of the XX century" No. 2