It’s strange to see Khreshchatyk looking like a small town street. But the vintage photo proves that is really how it looked in the 1880s.
There is little written evidence of what Kyiv’s main street looked like in its early days. Some of it can be found in the book “Old Kyiv” by Oleksandr Pataleev, a merchant who lived in the capital in the second half of the 19th century.
“In the early 1860s […] most streets were not only unpaved, but even unplanned,” Pataleev wrote in his memoirs. “Khreshchatyk’s pavement used to be a sort of a gutter, where during the early spring rain water rushed along the entire width of the street.”
Residents of houses along Khreshchatyk used to keep little wooden bridges on wheels in their courtyards, which they rolled out to get across the stream to the opposite side of the street when needed.
Underground sewers did not exist here at that time. Therefore, during heavy downpours or floods, water from adjacent streets rushed down to Khreshchatyk. It created a wide and deep river which washed away all those wooden bridges along its way.
In 1865, water rose to more than 1.5 meters, causing much damage and even deaths, the author of the book wrote.
A big puddle in the old photo, which was most likely taken in the spring, is probably the remainder of that infamous Khreshchatyk stream.
The picture also shows over a dozen horse carts doing their best to navigate this obstacle. The problem was solved only after underground drains were put in, and the street was paved to launch a tram line in 1892.
According to Pataleev, the early 1860s were also a time when numerous expatriates started settling in the city. Germans, French and Jews were the first to arrive.
The city grew rapidly, its population reaching 250,000 in the early 1890s. The population was very cosmopolitan, speaking 50 different languages.
The old photo bears plenty of proof of just how diverse the population was. Building number two on Khreshchatyk Street (far right) housed the first hotel on the street, Yevropeysky (European).
It was owned by French merchant Germaine Breton. The spot is now occupied by Ukrainian House (far right on the modern photo).
The modern view of the same place in Kyiv depicts how Kyiv’s main street has changed over 130 years. (Photo by Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Building 4 on Khreshchatyk Street was occupied by Joseph Marshak, a Jew and the most famous jeweler in the city. His shop was located on the first floor, while the two other floors housed his jewelry factory, employing about 100 people. The building is now home to UNIAN, a Ukrainian news agency.
The sign on the two-story house, number 8 Khreshchatyk Street, clearly reads: Wallpaper by K. Lange. Lange was a famous decorator in Kyiv and one of the first Germans who arrived in the city. Nowadays, 8 Khreshchatyk is the address of a branch of Khreshchatyk bank.
The sign on the next building, 10, advertises a shop by the Jewish entrepreneur R. Frenkel. He was a personal stamp cutter and sold the stamps in his shop. These days, No 10 is a regular boring building, housing offices and restaurants.
None of the buildings from the old photo survived to today.
“There were two construction booms in old Kyiv,” explained Olga Druh, a historian at the Kyiv History Museum. “One took place at the end of the 19th century, and the other at the beginning of the 20th century. It produced new, much taller buildings on this spot.”
Some of those ancient buildings survived the World War II bombings by Nazis and Soviet mines. Others, like the two buildings on the far right, were erected later in Soviet times.
The contrast in the two photos is striking, as the street changed significantly over 130 years. But navigating the main street remains complicated – thankfully because of traffic, rather than a lack of gutters.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Faryna can be reached at [email protected].
