House of General Kurnakov

The house of General Semyon Kurnakov appeared one of the first in Novocherkassk ^[1] . It was built in 1810 ^[3] , mentions documents dated June 10, 1812 in which contemporaries speak of the structure as one of the best in the city ^[1] . The owner of the house often resolved issues related to the construction of architectural structures in Novocherkassk. On May 9, 1817, a magnificent celebration was organized in this house ^[4] : the ataman’s son, Ivan Matveevich, married. The bride was the granddaughter of ataman Stepan Danilovich Efremov . In 1818, a ball was held in the general's house in honor of the arrival of Alexander I in the city ^[2] . After a while, the building was owned by the Cossack Sheikin. He rebuilt the former general’s house, and in the 1870s this building was already known as the European Hotel. The building was rebuilt as a hotel in 1873. Representatives of creative professions stayed there mainly.

After the reconstruction, the appearance of the building remained unchanged. Since the building is located on uneven terrain, from the side of Atamanskaya street the two-story building with a basement growing in height and a six-columned portico in the center passes into a three-story building. Behind the powerful, two-story-high columns with capitals, there was a wide, spacious balcony with wrought-iron metal bars. The entrance to the hotel was from the north wing of the building and was decorated with a canopy on metal columns. The narrow, with steep steps, entrance to the building in the center of the portico was probably made in the 20s of the XX century. From the side of Aleksandrovskaya street, due to the relief, the hotel had three floors. From the windows of the southern facade opened a view of the steppe, spring turning into a water surface. A new element of the house was a banner installed on the outside of the colonnade, notifying that it was a “European hotel”. At one time, the European Hotel was the largest in Novocherkassk. The hotel had forty rooms, a restaurant for demanding guests. For a long time, the owner of the hotel was S.I. Krylov, who from 1896 to 1913 held in his hands the theater business of Novocherkassk. Semen Ivanovich favored art. Therefore, in “Evropeyskaya” the Novocherkassk artists often lived for a long time, and former cultural figures found a roof over their heads.

At different times, singers Fedor Chaliapin , Leonid Sobinov , literary Alexander Kuprin, Vladimir Gilyarovsky stayed at the hotel. The artist Ivan Krylov, writer Alexander Serafimovich, playwright Konstantin Trenev, musicians Mikhail Erdenko and Konstantin Dumchev, who lived in Novocherkassk, visited the hotel restaurant.

In the 1930s, the hotel was transformed into a student dormitory, then the building was transferred to the employees of the institute and the former hotel turned into a communal apartment. In 2004, the building switched to the balance of the city.

Subsequently, the building was again transferred to a hostel for students of the South Russian State Technical University ^{[1] [2]} . The building was overhauled.

A stone two-story house with a high basement , a balcony, large columns, four-pitched roof. Initially, there was a platform with benches in front of the house, now in its place is the Alexander Garden . The balcony has a large metal openwork fence. The facade of the house is cut through numerous windows ^[1] . The house is decorated with interfloor and crowning cornices. After the repair, the building was painted orange with architectural details highlighted in white.