This is a former school built in 1934.
The main building is a typical example of Constructivism, featuring decorative balconies that seem to come out of nowhere and lead to nowhere, similar to the “blind” balconies of the Gosprom and the Central Post Office.
Interestingly, the building’s facade isn’t entirely painted pink
The building next door to the “Standard” Scientific Production Association on Mukhachova Street looks abandoned, but it’s quite photogenic.
This applies in particular to the “billiards” sign.
These are all buildings from the 1930s.
According to German WWII aerial photographs, the building of the O. Morozov Kharkiv Mechanical Technical School at Morozova Street, 4 appears to have been unfinished in 1941 and was completed after the war.
Although the technical school itself was founded in 1930, it appears to have been located in a different building previously (as was School No. 6, founded in 1922). Two large Soviet Modernism sgraffito murals on its walls are particularly memorable.
Overall, there are far more gaps in the history of this educational cluster on Mukhachova Street than there are known facts.
So who exactly is this Mukhachov, in whose honor the street formerly named after the revolutionary Voykov was renamed in 2015? Petro Matveyevich Mukhachov (1861–1935) was a process engineer and served as director of the Kharkiv Technological Institute from 1905 to 1906 and from 1910 to 1917.
Although he was born in St. Petersburg, he made Kharkiv his home and headed the Department of Locomotive Engineering at Kharkiv Technical Institute (now Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute) for 40 years. So, in memory of the father of Kharkiv locomotive engineering, a street was named after him near the very place where these locomotives were manufactured—next to the current Malyshev Plant.
You can learn more about the history of the settlement in Mikhail Kornilov’s video:
The main building of the school was severely damaged by a Russian missile strike on July 30, 2022.
