CITIES
Cherkasy: blue palace, hyperboloid, and charming brick villas
Overlooked beauty of my native city
Cherkasy, the center-most city of Ukraine, was founded in the 13th century and had a wooden castle, but now the oldest surviving building dates back to the 1850s. Locals don’t perceive Cherkasy as a nice destination, but I’ll show you plenty of sites worth gazing at.
Masterpieces of Horodecki
The city’s most valuable buildings are credited to the talent of Władysław Horodecki (1863–1930), an architect of Polish origin, often called “Ukrainian Gaudi.” He contributed greatly to the architecture of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and designed four buildings in Cherkasy.
Hotel “Slovianskyi” (end of the 19th century)
Our first stop is Hotel “Slovianskyi,” colloquially known as the “Blue Palace.” It was built at the end of the 19th century and belonged to a famous entrepreneur, Skoryna. Old postcards show alternating red-brown and grey paint on the walls and roof, but after a major overhaul in the 1990s, the building became blue-and-white.
An interesting fact: neither the construction year nor the authorship of Horodentski are undoubtedly proven.
Women’s Gymnasium (1903–1905)
Seven decades of enslavement in the USSR had left its mark — people still call this gorgeous building “Pioneers Palace.” After seizing power in Ukraine, communists converted the Women’s Gymnasium into a place for propaganda and “rebranded” the fronton. You can still see the scars after removing Soviet emblems and remaining plates with marching “young pioneers.”
Besides, the building served as a Nazi stronghold in the second world war. In 1943, a unit of Soviet infantry led by Georgian war hero Vakhtanh Chikovani took it by storm — a significant milestone in Cherkasy liberation.
By the way, the Women’s Gymnasium is the only building in Cherkasy with Horodecki’s bas-relief on its facade.
Public Bank (1914)
I always thought this house was the office of the newspaper “Cherkaskyi Krai” (Cherkasy Land) and only recently read about its initial purpose. Horodecki designed this exquisite estate for the first city bank, “Gromadskyi Bank” (Public Bank). The newspaper moved in only in the 1950s.
Some time ago, a restaurant on the ground floor erected a controversial summer terrace and refused to remove it. Sadly, the inaction of authorities created a bad precedent, and now a coffee shop, which took the place of that restaurant, owns an even larger and uglier extension. I did my best to take pictures of the building the way this annex is not visible.
And one more thing: you might not notice anything special about this house from afar, but a closer look will reveal astonishing curved doors and windows, not to mention blue glass tiles on the walls.
Jewish Gymnasium (the 1910s)
This two-story building was designed as an educational establishment, but in a couple of decades, the Soviets turned it into a political institution. Now it houses the Art School named after Danylo Narbut, a famous Ukrainian painter and stage designer.
This building seldom appears in Cherkasy photo albums since it’s usually hidden behind the trees and isn’t exposed to the sunlight.
This is the fourth work by Horodecki in Cherkasy, but not the last remarkable building in the city. The next place I’ll show you belongs to a later period and is much more underrated by city dwellers.
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Central Market (1966)
Citizens contemptuously call the market a “tin can” or “hockey puck” and don’t realize it’s a unique example of modernist architecture. This design belongs to Kyiv architect Nataliia Chmutina, and it was her first building with an experimental cable-stayed roof.
Owing to the circular shape, the market turned out to be twice cheaper than traditional reinforced concrete construction, and trading slots had a bigger volume. Framed walls with floor-to-ceiling windows made the building look lightweight despite its impressive 52-meter diameter.
Such markets originally stood in the middle of squares, and there was enough free space around them. Sadly, the Cherkasy market suffocates surrounded by trading pavilions and shopping centers — these plastic “chicken coops” with dazzling advertising.
Shykhov’s Hyperboloid Tower (1914)
This is one of the first hyperboloid structures designed by Russian engineer Vladimir Shukhov. Only 20 Shukhov towers out of 200 survived till now and four of them are located in Ukraine: two lighthouses in the Kherson Region and water towers in Mykolaiv and Cherkasy.
Before retreating from the city in 1944, Nazis demolished the tower. It was reconstructed soon afterward and used until 1975 when the municipal water supply system switched from groundwater to River Dnipro.
Hyperboloid structures inspired world-known architects like Antoni Gaudi and Le Corbusier and were intensively used later on.
Maiboroda’s House (1906–1910)
Now let’s get back to elegant residential estates from the edge of the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the well-preserved mansions belonged to the Maiboroda family. Maiboroda was an entrepreneur who made his fortune in railroad construction and owned a brick factory and sawmill.
Unlike other rich men who preferred Kyiv architects to design their houses, Maiboroda chose a local one. So, Heorhii Filofero created this 10-room neoclassical villa with the elements of Renaissance and Empire style. The main house was accompanied by stables and rooms for servants; now this auxiliary building accommodates offices.
As fate would have it, the owners couldn’t enjoy living in this house to old age. After the Civil War in the Russian Empire and the communists’ rise to power, Maiboroda moved to France. After several years, however, the family decided to return and was murdered by robbers in 1921.
Soviet authorities used the house for providing obligatory military education, later as a kindergarten, and finally, a sanitary-epidemiological station, which is located here today.
It’s one of a few old buildings in Cherkasy with wooden windows. Hopefully, they won’t be replaced with plastic ones.
Shcherbyna Mansion (1892)
The next stop in our journey is even more well-known and admired than Maiboroda’s House. Shcherbyna’s Mansion, more often referred to as the “Wedding Palace,” stands at the end of Khreschatyk, the oldest street in Cherkasy. Due to the Ukrainian business magazine “Focus,” it’s one of the five best-lightened buildings at night.
Shcherbyna was an engineer and owned an excavation business. He built a complex of buildings for his family, including a neo-renaissance residential house, stables, and annexes. Not only does the mansion stand out nowadays, but it was also the pearl of the city a century ago.
And again, Shcherbyna didn’t enjoy long years of living in his manor. County authorities rented the building in 1907. Later it housed municipal institutions and Soviet establishments and served as a “Pioneers Palace” for communist propaganda among youth. During the Nazi occupation, Shcherbyna’s house was used either by the police or as the commandant’s office.
In the 1970s, the building turned into a place for wedding ceremonies and plays this role today. Unfortunately, this change also affected the design: a wide entrance with stairs was cut in the front facade, and the rear facade got a half-circular extension with stained glass artwork. A recent restoration brought another vulgar element — plastic windows.
House of Tsybulski Brothers (1852)
The oldest building in Cherkasy appeared as a half-wooden 1,5-story house in 1852 and was rebuilt in the 1890s in a neoclassical manner. It belonged to local merchants, brothers Tsybulski, and remained the city’s highest building for a couple of decades.
Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s most prominent and idolized poet, spent his house arrest here in 1859. Nowadays, Tsybulski House claims to be the world’s only museum of a single book — Shevchenko’s “Kobzar.” This poetry collection was printed in 1840, but the Russian Empire’s censorship immediately banned the book and removed it from stores and libraries. “Kobzar” became rare during the poet’s lifetime because it symbolized Ukrainian national revival and struggle for independence.
By the way, a two-story building on the right of the museum was erected by merchant Belakhov in the 1880s. Belakhov bought a film projector in France and demonstrated silent movies, thus starting the first city cinema.
Overlooked old houses
I love vintage buildings with history — but I pay no less attention to no-name houses representing the spirit of their time. Only as an adult, can I truly appreciate the beauty of my native city: you won’t find such brick houses in Germany, France, or, let’s say, Italy.
Sometimes I think my articles are a way to preserve the footprint of original designs before they face modern makeshift renovations.
It’s always embarrassing to admit Ukrainians spoil historical facades with air conditioners and satellite antennas and install vulgar plastic windows that barely resemble ornate wooden originals.
But sometimes, historical layers create a lovely mixture of styles. For example, I found eight paint colors on the fence, porches, balcony, doors, and windows in the picture below. Isn’t it worth a second glance?
Another thing I find extremely beautiful is vintage cars, especially bright ones — yellow, red, or acid green. Sometimes I see a nice building and wait until an interesting four-wheeled character enters the scene and adds some dynamics to the static photo composition.
But houses and cars are not the only objects to stare at in Cherkasy. The city stands on the Dnieper’s steep right bank, and the river itself deserves a dedicated article, so I’ll focus on the most unusual facts.
“The Cherkasy Sea”
Despite being an inland city, Cherkasy has its “sea,” due to the nickname of the Kremenchuk Reservoir.
This enormous 150-kilometer-long water body has a sad history — in 1959, the USSR authorities flooded vast territories to enable the development of a hydroelectric power plant down the Dnieper’s stream. 212 towns and villages vanished, and unique fertile grounds and archeological excavations of the Bronze Age got covered with water.
But here is another Soviet atrocity. The construction of a power plant was just a sham. They built a cascade of Dnieper reservoirs so that in the case of a hypothetical NATO invasion to blast the dams and make a belt of swamps impassable to enemy vehicles.
As a result of flooding, best-preserved old islands remained primarily upriver, whereas new ones emerged from former dunes and river curves in the middle of the reservoir. In summer, locals never miss a chance to take a boat trip and camp on a nearby wild island.
It’s not allowed to build anything on the islands, but some people (including my dad) assemble temporary huts from driftwood, sticks, and reeds. The cleanliness of the area is “self-regulated”: careless trippers leave litter, and eco-conscious people clean it up.
And before I forget, a couple of words about the Cherkasy dam. It connects the eastern and western banks of the reservoir and is 15 kilometers long, including a metal bridge (the longest dam in Ukraine).
A weird feature of the dam is the railway station Panske, several houses standing in the middle of nowhere — right on a narrow stripe of land adjacent to the railroad! The station inherited its name from the former village located in this place before being flooded.
Hill of Glory (1965–1977) and Local Lore Museum (1985)
Central Ukraine suffered the most from the second world war’s devastating battles: over three thousand houses and all Cherkasy’s factories and plants were flattened. As for the churches, some of them survived the war but were later destroyed by the Soviets. A decade after the war, it was decided to commemorate the victims. So, authorities demolished an old church on the former castle hill, extended and raised the hill towards the river, and topped it with the Motherland statue.
After the memorial construction was finished, a new spacious building arose nearby to accommodate the local lore museum. Its oldest exhibits are a mammoth skeleton and the remains of a Scythian warrior (Scyths inhabited Ukraine around two and a half thousand years ago). But to be fair, you can easily find more ancient bones in museums, so let me tell you about something really unique to Cherkasy Region.
A set of exhibits tells the story of Levko (1855–1920) and Volodymyr Symyrenko (1891–1938), famous Ukrainian fruit breeders and gardening researchers. A popular apple sort is called after Levko — Reinette Symyrenko, colloquially known as “Symyrenko.” My wife and I love them for their well-balanced sour taste. These apples have a characteristic crispy flesh and green skin with white dots. Don’t forget to buy a kilo!
Soviet astronauts took Symyrenko apples into space for dessert. But in all fairness, we shouldn’t forget that Volodymyr Symyrenko fell victim to Stalin’s terror for scientific views, which undermined official doctrines.
Letychevskyi’s House (end of the 19th century)
What now is a not-so-joyful place — the House of Mourning — used to be another entrepreneur’s dwelling. Letychevskyi, the owner of one of the city’s tobacco factories, should have built this house at the end of the 19th century. When communists came to power, this building was the headquarters of security officers (so-called Chekists, later NKVD) tasked with suppressing any anti-Soviet revolts and ideas.
Ever since I can remember, this house always had columns and window decorations painted blue and brown. But after this year’s restoration, the building looks stricter and almost fully white.
Forester’s House (the 1870s)
You’ve already seen yellow, white, blue, and grayish buildings; it’s time to show you a turquoise one. Now this gorgeous mansion houses the Regional Academic Puppet Theatre, but initially, it belonged to the county forester. The house adjoined a large garden that stretched along the whole city block, but today the school where I studied occupies the area.
After the second world war, the forester’s house was used as a kindergarten, children’s library — and guess what else? — “Pioneers Palace,” of course! The theater moved in only in the 1970s.
The building has a basement floor and seems to be more compact than it actually is. Unfortunately, the modern roof and plastic eaves a bit spoil the impression of this old house.
Frankly speaking, I can talk about Cherkasy for hours. So, let’s conclude this journey with two more places that always make me feel nostalgic.
A yellow building with an octagonal tower adorns the intersection of the main traffic arteries — Shevchenko Boulevard and Smilyanska Street. Unlike the typically pressing and pretentious architecture of Stalin’s time, this house looks pretty good, probably, owing to bright colors. I always passed it by on my way to school or the supermarket. Only recently the tower has been cleared of aggressive advertisements.
And on the neighboring building, you can see the mosaic panel “Cossack Mamay” by Ukrainian artist Mykola Telizhenko. It’s a miracle how the artwork survived Soviet censorship. It turned out to be the first and only mosaic in Cherkasy to feature the national blue-and-yellow palette.
“Cossack Mamay” decorates the facade of the city’s largest jewelry store and looks well-cared-for, so I don’t have to worry about its fate.
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