One of the most beautiful buildings in the center of Kyiv is the luxurious mansion of Yakov Polyakov, which is often called the Small Mariinsky Palace for its common colors and lavish baroque decor.
This was reported by vechirniy kyiv.
The history of the development of this area has been known since the mid- 18th century. It is believed that one of the first owners was the nobleman Demian Obolonskyi, the son of the General judge and General bunchuzhny of the Zaporozhian Cossack Army. He was favored by Empress Elizabeth, and in the 1740s received from her several estates in the villages. In 1799, his son Demian the juniour built his luxurious estate in Lypky.
However, the luxurious palace did not please its owner for long, as in the late 1900s the land became the property of a doctor, Yakiv Polyakov, who decided to radically change the appearance of the estate. It is known that the new owner was born in 1876 and came from a noble family. He graduated from the medical faculty of Moscow University and practiced medicine in Kyiv. Later, he successfully married Klara Brodsky, the daughter of the famous businessman and sugar magnate Lev Brodsky and his wife Flora.
In 1910, at the doctor's request, the famous Odesa architect Fedir Troupianskyi built an exquisite one-and-a-half-story house on Lypky near the Mariinsky Palace. The building is one of the most striking monuments in the modernized Baroque style in Kyiv.
During the national liberation struggle of 1917-1921, this building was destined to become one of the most important government buildings in the Ukrainian People's Republic. After moving from the Savoy Hotel down Khreshchatyk in 1917-1919, it housed the General Secretariat (Ministry) of Finance of the UPR and the Ukrainian state. The building was the residence of Finance Minister Anton Rzepetsky. Therefore, it is believed that we owe the appearance of the first Ukrainian money to these walls.
A sad page in the history of the estate was the first Bolshevik takeover of the city in 1918, when Mikhail Muravyov's army captured our city, Yakov Polyakov's estate turned into a real torture chamber where torture and executions took place.
After nationalization in 1919, the estate briefly housed the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In the 1920s, the premises were transferred to the Kyiv District Children's Hospital OKHMATDYT.
Since independence, the former Polyakov estate has been an administrative building where various governmental events and celebrations are held. Most of them are closed, so it is quite difficult to get inside the estate to admire the exquisite interiors.
Earlier, we wrote about how Kyiv looked like in the late 19th century.