There are quite a few buildings in Kharkiv’s central part that remain in the shadow of their more significant and famous counterparts. Among the houses built before 1917 for well-known banks, the first building of the Azov-Don Bank at Constitution Square No. 14 is not so well known. Since the 1660s, the large yard where the bank building would later be constructed belonged to the Assumption Cathedral. In the 18th century, two huts were cramped here, one of which was already dilapidated by 1768. The old buildings stood behind a solid fence until 1840, after which the cathedral clergy decided to build a stone brotherhood house and sold part of the yard to Ekaterina Ipatievna Kuzina, the wife of a commercial counselor. In 1842, she began construction of a two-story stone house here, designed by the city architect Andrey Ton.
The house was quite charming and served several purposes. First of all, impressive cellars were built beneath it to store goods brought by merchants attending Kharkiv fairs. The first floor was mostly occupied by a shop rented out for the sale of textiles. The second floor housed four excellent apartments rented by wealthy visitors. It is known that Vice-Governor Karl Karlovich Danzas lived in this house for almost six months until he bought his own in Kharkiv. However, officials did not like the house; there was almost constant hustle and bustle with many visiting traders, strangers, loaders, and clerks causing disturbance, so it was often rented to affluent merchants. Later, it was bought by a foreigner named Werther, whose wife Teresa sold the house to the Azov-Don Bank.
By that time, the bank had already earned a solid reputation — founded in 1871 in Taganrog, it had branches in St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Łódź, Tsaritsyn, and other cities of the empire. It was expected that about 50 people would work at the Kharkiv branch, so the old building was demolished, and in 1896 a new one was built on its site according to the design of architect Alexey Nikolaevich Beketov. Undoubtedly, it beautified the city and Nikolaevskaya Square, but in the following years, buildings of other banks surpassed it in beauty.
The building of the Kharkiv branch of the Azov-Don Bank, constructed in 1897, by the early 20th century could no longer fully accommodate all the operational needs of the branch. There was hardly any room for expansion. Scratching their heads, they decided to sell the building, purchase a new plot, and build a new building on it. The sale of the building for 160,000 rubles was agreed upon in 1910 with the Kharkiv Second Mutual Credit Society. The plot for the new building was acquired in the same year at the corner of Nikolaevskaya Square and Nikolaevskaya Street (the Kovalev estate). The current address is Constitution Square No. 18. On the plot stood a modest two-story house, which, already owned by the Azov-Don Bank, briefly became a “center” of the avant-garde movement in Kharkiv’s cultural life. In October 1911, an exhibition of works (about 180 paintings and sketches) by the Kharkiv artists’ association “Ring” was held in five halls of the building. The public called the event the “exhibition of footcloths,” demanding the authors explain what it all meant. Sparking lively interest, the avant-garde in early 20th-century Kharkiv struggled through the thorns of public distrust. This time there were no incidents typical of similar exhibitions in previous years, when visitors wrote “fool” and “idiot” on Burliuk’s paintings (1910 exhibition). But one visitor couldn’t resist and on October 16 stole two drawings by artist Dmitry Mitrokhin, belonging to V.A. Moiseenko.
At the end of 1912, a competition was held for the new bank building in Kharkiv, with projects submitted by Kharkiv architects. The number and composition of participants remain unknown. The competition materials were sent to St. Petersburg for review by the bank’s board. The competition did not identify a winner, and the board commissioned architect Lidval to create a sketch project. After agreeing on the sketch design, the work on the project and working drawings was entrusted to Kharkiv designer — engineer-technologist L.K. Terven. Terven began designing in early 1913 and completed the work in summer 1913. In September 1913, the city council approved the project of the four-story building with a basement for the Azov-Don Bank at the corner of Nikolaevskaya Square and Nikolaevskaya Street. The project materials (plans, facades, sections, photographs of facades) are stored in the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA). Construction was completed in 1914. The building has come down to us without significant changes, having lost the decorative parapet roof ornamentation and suffered from numerous internal rearrangements.
Nothing unique. A familiar functional scheme typical for all bank branches. The facade facing the square and part of the facade on Korolenko Street (Nikolaevskaya), which reflects the “main” volume and was visible from the square, were elaborately designed. The facade of the administrative part, which was hidden by the volume of the Nikolaev Church, was designed as simply and restrainedly as possible.
The compositional possibilities potentially inherent in the corner plot were not developed due to the close proximity of the huge Nikolaev Church, whose primacy in the square’s silhouette the authors nevertheless did not dare to challenge. The main entrance is highlighted by a cartouche with two putti and the date “1871,” the founding year of the Azov-Don Bank. On the facade of the old bank building, after reconstruction (also by Terven’s design), the numbers “1871” (not preserved) were also placed — the founding date of the Kharkiv Second Mutual Credit Society. The cartouche on the new building is crowned by the head of Hermes mounted on a caduceus. The thematic simplicity (compared to the capital’s branch) is echoed by the same Hermes (only in profile) on the medallions of the pilaster capitals of the main facades, which include an inverted cornucopia in the composition. The sculptural plasticity lacks the cold stride of northern Art Nouveau, sliding into outright “ornamentation,” which confidently indicates that it was entrusted to Kharkiv designers (Terven).
A striking feature of the decoration was the sculptural ornaments of the parapet, whose subject is hard to discern in old photos — some kind of siren-caryatids holding an undefined object (a sphere, a bowl?). They survived until the mid-20th century.
Currently, the corner of the parapet roof is decorated with a statue of a violinist, which has become one of the city’s symbols.
Sources:
https://ngeorgij.livejournal.com/199781.html
https://moniacs.kh.ua/azovsko-donskij-bank/
