Pushkins'ka 94
Pushkins'ka 94 (Пушкiнська 94 in Ukrainian, Пушкинская 94 in Russian) Mansion of the merchant of the 1st guild Semyon Tolkachev (also called Salve House because of the inscription on the pediment) is a small but nice mansion built in 1910 according to the project of the architect (and owner's brother) Tolkachev in neoclassical style.
Owner question[edit | edit source]
Some sources indicate that the house was built for doctor R. Frenkel, according to others for doctor Semyon Frenkel. No documents are known to support this version.
Most likely, the confusion arose due to the fact that Tolkachev previously also owned a house at Pushkins'ka 100, which in 1913 he donated to a children's bone tuberculosis hospital. Perhaps, one of the Kharkiv doctors named Frenkel (Mikhail Abramovich Frenkel or Iosif Abramovich Frenkel) later worked in it.
History[edit | edit source]
In the period from December 1919 to August 1920, for about a month with interruptions, Stalin lived in the house at 94 Pushkins'ka Street. At this time, he led the fighting of the Southern Front. After Stalin visited the mansion, the poet Boris Bezdomny wrote a poem about him:
On the street of the great poet,
In a one-story house, at one o'clock at night,
The great strategist sat until dawn,
Leaning in silence over the front-line map.
Original in Russian:
На улице великого поэта,
В одноэтажном доме, в час ночной,
Сидел стратег великий до рассвета,
Склонясь в тиши над картой фронтовой.
Currently, the house hosts kindergarten number 66.
Behind the scenes[edit | edit source]
In this house Khlebnikov predicted Stalin his whole fate. Stalin called him a "tramp in pajamas" and went to the famous astrologer. The astrologer confirmed everything. After that, Stalin changed his year of birth from the year of the tiger to the year of the cat.
