A unique mansion in the very centre of Lutsk is led to destruction. Before the Second World War Polish officials had lived here. During the years of Soviet power, the estate was “snatched” and handed over to the first obkom secretary. The secretary moved out. Then he shot himself… But the estate, at a stroke of a pen of a “descendant” of an ex- party boss, was sentenced to a plight.
It is sometimes called a “green house”. Today it is almost a ruin. A shelter for homeless people and drug addicts. There are the eloquent “graffiti of contemporaries” on the walls, and the remains of collapsed balconies and columns under them.
The neighbours still remember that there was a guard under the fir-trees, that the stone fence hid the Communist party luxury and the tranquility of the first Volyn obkom secretary Fedir Kalyta. Now the owners of the estate hide insidious plans behind weeds and thickets. According to the general plan – it is a multistorey building. Is that why for many years it was convenient for the authorities and businessmen, that people could not see a unique estate over the dense thickets?
Yaroshchuk Street was once called Mateiko Street. Polish officials lived here, because before the establishment of the Soviet power in Western Ukraine, Lutsk was under Polish rule. A good house in Mateiko Street was built by Polish entrepreneurs Kronshteins, who gave not only the unique mansion to Lutsk.
According to the ethnographer Bohdan Voron, under Polish rule, this house was the home of the second president of the city, Yan Sushynskyi. The burgomaster Sushynskyi was also a co-founder of the Volyn Local Lore Museum. Another owner of this building is the architect Kazymir Yanitskyi, who gave the building of the Museum of Local Lore to Lutsk. His architectural bureau was here.
“National Romanticism in the architecture of the Second Polish Republic”. “Family Baroque”. “The distinctive and unique design of the mezzanine with volutes (spiral, scroll-like ornaments)”. “The shape of the roof: with a distinctive fracture”. “Double column portico in front of the entrance”. Oak flooring. Two floors under the shingles – each has 5 rooms. Bathrooms. Terraces. Masonry stairs … Before the arrival of the “Soviets”, it had been one of the few estates with water supply, sewer, electric lighting and even a telephone.
Today, architects talk about the uniqueness of the villa in Yaroshchuk Street. It is called “an example of the individual residential development of the second half of the 20th century” by the doctor of architecture Olha Mykhailyshyn in the book “Architecture and Urban Planning of Western Volyn in 1921-1939”.
“We called it Kalyta’s house,” said Taras Raban, the head of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine in Volyn.
He lived nearby as a child. Children were running under the fence, luxurious trees grew behind it, and the children stared at the green building with fear. The architect thinks that the estate can be restored. He also wants to see a museum here, not the ruins.
In the 1960s, the first obkom secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Fedir Kalyta, lived here. The obkom is very close to it, now it is Eastern European National University. The party boss was sent to Volyn from the Kyiv oblast. A fishing inspector, a teacher, a raikom secretary Kalyta became the first person of Volyn in 1961. A member of the Central Committee of the CPU and People’s Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR of three convocations.
“That was the mansion in carpets … Fir trees in the courtyard, paths. So luxurious. I came there, and there was a security guard. He checked out a microphone, a bag. The guard accompanied me to the hall. He himself was sitting at the table opposite me. I sat on the sofa and was waiting for him for 15 minutes, “the former radio journalist Mykhailo Yukhta recalls how he came to interview Kalyta in the 60s.
Volyn citizens remember not the life of the obkom secretary, but his death. In 1969 he left Volyn and headed the State Committee for Conservation of Nature in the capital. After his wife wanted him to cut down three chestnut trees near their new apartment, Kalyta was removed from the office. He couldn’t bear it. And one evening he shot himself in the mouth with a hunting rifle…
Kalyta’s karma seems to haunt these walls since the Soviet era. In the 80’s there was a kindergarten. Later – a centralized accounts department of preschool educational institutions. And then the premises were transferred to private property. In 2001, thanks to Major Anton Kryvytskyi, the estate was sold. The inheritance of Kalyta went to the company “Kaskad-production”, which became famous for scandals with loans. The city “earned” 157 thousand UAH from the privatization of the unique villa.
Later, the villa got other owners – the company “FRESH TRADE”. Frankly speaking, they were not the good owners. Because the dense fir trees and weeds hide the obvious option for this property. Citizens of Lutsk say: “They destroy the monument deliberately, because they want to demolish it”.
And only when the journalists drew attention of the city council, they woke up. After numerous publications, the petition for granting the status of a monument of local importance to this place, the Department of Cultural Heritage recognized officially that the villa in Yaroshchuk Street had value. But will the current owner take this step?
“We take the appropriate steps to influence these owners, but there is no result so far,” – said the secretary of the city council Hryhorii Pustovit.
Officials promise to solicit for the estate in Yaroshchuk Street to be inscribed on the list of monuments in 2019. However, there are rumours that the current owners of Kalyta’s estate are going to sell it.
After every resonant story in the media about the future of the villa in the centre of the city, they try to block access to the mansion. Recently, a gate with a lock has been installed there. But it does not prevent the old walls from falling…
The value of the “green house” also lies in the fact that the estate is well-preserved, so it has a chance to be restored and become a beautiful museum.
Moreover, Yaroshchuk Street is a kind of mecca for tourists in Lutsk. The Volyn Icon Museum is situated here – a unique institution in Ukraine, which contains rare sacred items of the past. The samples of icon painting, which were saved during the total looting of local temples by “Soviets.” The unique miraculous Kholm icon of the Blessed Virgin, which still cures. Amazing sacred sculptures that served as decorations for churches in Volyn. The museum is visited by presidents, ministers and hundreds of tourists.
By the way, the Volyn Icon Museum is also situated in the “yesterday’s” house of the first Volyn obkom secretary and a passionate opponent of religion Ivan Hrushetskyi. However, it is luckier than the notorious Kalyta’s house: it is not in the hands of “tricksters of the 90’s”, whose mistakes should be corrected with the power of words.
Text and photo by: Olena Livitska
