At Ivan Franko Square, 5, stands a bizarre beige-red mansion with towers, arches, and columns — the so-called “Eclecticism with the East” by architect Mykola Dobachevsky. Built in 1899 by order of the future mayor of Kyiv, Ippolit Dyakov, the house grew up on the site of the former estate of the famous doctor Fedor Mering, where once the park alleys rustled and a round pond sparkled. The Dyakov family settled on the second and third floors, the fourth was occupied by a house church with a spacious hall.
This mansion has survived so much that it could write its own history of Kyiv. After 1917, it housed the headquarters of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, then representatives of the German command, then the railway directorate, and then labor schools. During World War II, the house was destroyed: the unique towers and spires on the roof disappeared. However, the mansion was rebuilt, even carefully adding a fifth floor – so that the eclectic style was not affected.
But the most romantic page in his biography is 1915, when the building housed the 8th Kyiv Gymnasium. A boy who was destined to conquer ballet stages around the world – Serge Lifar, the future star of the Paris Grand Opera – studied here. Now the Dyakov house houses the Kyivenergo office, but the facade with dragons still reminds us that behind every old Kyiv house lies a unique destiny.