A five-story building, built in the late 19th century, is literally falling apart before our eyes.
The house at 8 Marshal Bazhanov Street has been considered an emergency building for 17 years. The roof has long been gone, and the remaining walls are reinforced from the inside with massive steel beams — only thanks to this they do not collapse like a house of cards. Recently, the building was fenced off to protect passersby. A few years ago, bricks from the dilapidated structure almost injured two women.
The building belongs to one of the capital’s banks, which has not undertaken any repair or restoration work. All the owner did was install a fence, which itself could be dangerous. The area sees a significant flow of people every day — students and teachers from the City University of Municipal Economy pass by regularly.
“The emergency building may be demolished,” said Alexey Bogach, Deputy Director of the municipal company Zhylkomservice. According to him, the condition of 8 Marshal Bazhanov Street is such that two neighboring buildings could also collapse — No. 6, where 20 people live, and No. 10, with 45 residents. However, no final decision on demolition has been made yet. As a historic monument, the building must undergo expert assessment.
The house at 8 Bazhanov Street was built at the end of the 19th century by entrepreneur and philanthropist Maximilian Helferich, who also built a factory in Kharkiv producing agricultural machinery and tools.
“Whether Helferich himself lived on Chernoglazovskaya Street (the former name of Marshal Bazhanov Street), I do not know, but almost certainly he built the house for rent — apartments were in short supply,” said historian Andrey Paramonov. “Theoretically and practically, very respected people could have lived there, including governors. On Chernoglazovskaya Street, there was a house that housed the governor’s office.”
