A House with 3 Windows
Today the Committee for Architecture and Urban Planning occupies the graceful 69th house on Lenina street with 3 Venetian windows. However this house is rich with stories rather than you expect.
Initially, there were two buildings with a little park-size distance between. If you stand on the opposite side, the right part (further right from the three window part) belonged to an unknown person and the left part to a widow of colonel Ostankovich.
After a declaration of the Zemskaya [territorial, land] reform1 in 1864, the right building was acquired by the local authorities for Kursk provincial land committee. However, at first they thought of giving some rooms in the Noble Palace (currently Philharmonia-2 on Sonina street). The ground floor served as a printing house, the first floor, — the 8-room apartment was gived to a chairman, and the second floor turned into the office — the land administration.
With time, the functions and tasks for the land administration were extended, so the Kursk committee had to expand the office. In 1897, the left part of the current 69th building that belonged to the widow was acquired.
In the beginning of the 20th century two buildings were merged with a part of the building body that is currently the main entrance. The conference room was designed at the first floor of the intermediate building with the very 3 Venetian windows, so walking past a passerby could see the room lavishly decorated with chandeliers, balconies, and delicate ceiling frescoes.
In summer time of 1905, Pavel Milyukov visited Kursk to give a speech as a leader of the Constitutional Democratic party (known as the Kadets).
In the evening of October 18th, 1905, a large discussion took place where 700 people of working class had a strike against the Tsar’s manifest to give more political freedom. But they disagreed and left the building while singing the song of revolution “La Marseillaise”2. The next day there was a large demonstration on the Red square with thousands of people but savagely supressed by the government.
During the World War One, the building served as a hospital, which Nicolas the Second visited in November 1914 to see the wounded and injured soldiers. After the 1917 Revolution it was occupied by Regional public health commitee, then passed into the ownership of a commercial library and Regional executive committee. From 1921 to 1928, the house was transformed as an orphanage and from April 1938 — Pioneers Palace. When Nazis used this building as their hospital during the Second World War.