Mansion of Ivan Tereshchenko

The mansion was built for the wife of a college assessor , landowner Felicia Adamovna Modzelevskaya in 1874. The construction was carried out under the guidance of an architect-artist, a graduate of the Imperial Academy of Arts V. Yakunin. Little is known about Yakunin's work - only a few of his buildings in the Neo - Renaissance style .

In 1879, the estate passed to the retired guard cornet Ivan Nikolayevich Tereshchenko , the eldest son of the famous philanthropist Nikolai Artemievich Tereshchenko .

In December 1917, the mansion was nationalized and transferred for the needs of the General Secretariat of the Railways of the Central Council .

Now the building is the Office of Visas and Registration, and in the courtyard buildings - legal advice and the district employment center.

The collection of Tereshchenko, housed in the mansion, kept drawings by Pavel Fedotov , the work of Vasily Vereshchagin , Mikhail Vrubel , paintings and etchings by Lev Zhemchuzhnikov and other artists. After the death of Ivan Nikolaevich in 1903, the widow and son Mikhail, who continued to replenish it, became the owners of the collection.

The fate of the collection turned out to be tragic: after the nationalization of the mansion, the entire collection and household items were demolished in two rooms, in the attic and in the bathrooms ^[1] .

In January 1918, Kiev was burning from shelling of the red troops under the command of Mikhail Muravyov . Art critic Fedor Ernst wrote about those memorable January days when the Bolsheviks took control of Kiev . Then many treasures of Kiev perished, among them the majority of collections of I.N. Tereshchenko. Ernst described in detail the remains of wonderful paintings by first-class artists, torn to pieces or thoughtlessly destroyed by blows of sabers and knives. 40 paintings of various masters of the Russian school, 188 sketches and sketches of Vereshchagin and many other works of recognized masters were stolen and destroyed.

Later, everything that was preserved and was not taken out by the heirs of Ivan Nikolaevich to Petrograd was connected with the collection of Fyodor Artemovich Tereshchenko in the Kiev Museum of Russian Art .

The mansion is built in the style of Victorian neo - Gothic .

The building has two facades. The corner of the house is accented by a tower, in which there are two balconies. It is noteworthy that the author of the building used different types of windows on each floor: standard on the first floor, Gothic (lancet) - on the second and arched - on the third.

The corner tower of the building on the second and third floors has small balconies. A balcony is also available in that part of the building that faces Taras Shevchenko Boulevard.

The peculiarity of the building is the pilasters decorating the facade, which end with small turrets. Pilasters visually divide the facade of the house into equal parts according to the number of window openings, setting a peculiar “step”: two windows - a turret - two windows.

The facades of the building end, as befits a castle, with small teeth (as on a fortress wall ).

The final architectural design of the house is simpler than the initial one regarding the design of windows on the second floor: their outlines were changed, the number of windows was reduced, decorative window sills and window sills were simplified ^[2] .

The layout of the house was normal. The house had three stairs ^[2] .

• Neo-Gothic on Bibikovsky Boulevard, Your Kiev (photo of the initial building design)