Antimonov estate
Before the Russian Revolution, Kursk was filled with urban estates, where a rich family had a large manor within the city borders, notwithstanding the Mar’ino estate in Mokva.
A merchant of the first guild, Fyodor Ivanovich Antimonov (about 1801 — 1871), owned the 63rd and 65th houses on Sergievskaya Street (Gorky Street now). Having reached the First Guild meant owning a sea vessel, being able to travel across the country, and conducting business abroad; hence, they constituted a mere 2% of all merchants in the Russian Empire in the middle of the 1850s. Fyodor Antimonov had a fish factory (fish brought from the Sea of Azov) and a rope factory. He was also glasny at Kursk City Duma (a member of the Kursk city House of Representatives with the right to vote, a policymaker) and a lay judge. In 1863, the merchant received a position as an honorary guardian of the Kursk parish schools (the students aged 8-12 studied religious doctrine, liturgical music, mathematics, poetry, and writing, plus extensive reading); in 1865, Fyodor Antimonov became the first director of Kursk’s public Filipptsov’s bank. He was a fabled philanthropist.
Despite the importance of Fyodor’s deeds, his youngest brother (the 5th in the Antimonov family in the first marriage between Ivan the senior and Anna) Ivan the juniour, has been rather famous as Izaak I Optinsky.
The affluent family brought up the children in the strict Orthodoxy spirit, living in accordance with patriachal rules. There is a legend that, prior to his birth year, Ivan the senior (about 1780 — 1861, a merchant of the second guild; the son of Vasiliy Vasilievich, a merchant of the first guild) went on a pilgrimage to Kiev. There Ivan Vasilievich was greeted by hieromonk Parfeniy, saying, “Блаженно чрево, родившее монаха” [“Blessed is the womb, given birth to a monk”]. Only travelling to Kiev in 1847, Ivan the junior gathered his strenght and turned to the Optina Pustyn (no longer before his other brother Meletiy (1794—1865) (Mikhail is his worldly name) was transferred to Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra from the Optina Pustyn and became an abbot), where he stayed till his last breath in 1894.
By the 1900s, one of the last members, Olga Dmitrievna Antimonova passed away, and the estate ceased to belong to the Antimonov family. The 63rd house became the property of the hereditary honorary citizen N.N. Loskutov and the 65th of the Maslennikov family. During the Second World War, these buildings were damaged and later restored by German prisoners. The 67th house belonged to Sergey Antimonov; however the building was occupied by the leader of Lutheran community, Konstantin Rings, by the end of the 19th century.