Profitable House Karapet Chernov

The three-story apartment building was built in the 1890s by order of the merchant Karapet Chernov. Later, the house was built up to five floors designed by architect F. S. Yasinsky under the supervision of engineer G. G. Chorcopyan ^[1] .

The urban legend about the horse breeder Karapet Chernov and the wooler Gabriel Melkonov-Ezekov is connected with the construction of the apartment building. To find out which of them is richer, the merchants decided to build two profitable houses at the intersection of Bolshaya Sadovaya Street and Bolshoy Prospekt (the then name of Voroshilovsky Prospect ^[2] ), opposite each other. The one whose house was more chic won the argument. At first, tenement houses had three floors, but when a construction boom began in Rostov at the beginning of the 20th century, both merchants decided to build houses up to five floors. As a result, the dome of Melkonov-Ezekov was a few meters higher. Chernov could not build on the dome, and then columns were installed on the roof of his house. Due to this peculiarity, the townspeople called it “the house with columns on props” ^[1] .

Before the revolution, the premises in the rental house were leased by the St. Petersburg International Commercial Bank, the Merchant Mutual Credit Society, the Agricultural Bank and the dentist MM M. Sabsovich. In the early 1920s, the house of Chernov was nationalized. Shops were opened on the first floor, and the Labor Palace, the Dynamo Sports Society, Sevkavsnabsbyt and other institutions were located on the other floors. In 1931 the building was transferred to the financial and economic institute. The house of Chernov was seriously injured during the Great Patriotic War . In the late 1950s, it was restored by the design of architects M. N. Ishunin and G. A. Petrov ^[1] , but without columns on the roof. The Melkonov-Ezekov's house, which stood opposite to the war, was completely destroyed and could not be restored ^[3] . In the 1970s, a seven-story building was added to the northern part of the building ^[1] .

In 1964, the financial and economic institute was renamed the institute of the national economy. Currently the building is occupied by the Rostov State Economic University .

The front facades of the building overlook Bolshaya Sadovaya Street and Voroshilovsky Avenue. Their architectural and artistic appearance is determined by raskrepovki across the entire height of the building, which are combined on the last floor with twin pilasters . The compositional center of a profitable house is its angular semicircular part, overlooking the intersection. The top of the corner is solved in the form of a loggia with columns. Central raskrepovki highlighted on the first floor porticos. On the third and fourth floors of the rasskrepovki decorated in the form of four-porticos of the Ionic order . On the fifth floor there are long balconies with metal bars. The facades of the apartment building are richly decorated with stucco and decorative plaster: heraldic shits on the first floor, herms in the walls of the second floor, decorative platbands, window sills in the form of wreaths, garlands and lion masks ^[1] .