The buildings at Garet Jones Street, 8/1 and 8/2 are essentially a single building with two addresses. Originally, the street was called Monastyrska. From 1929 to 2024, it was known as Spartaka Street.

These are the only buildings on the street listed as architectural landmarks in Kharkiv, where they are designated as residential buildings constructed in the early 20th century according to a design by Vladimir Pokrovsky.

But as we have repeatedly emphasized, the attribution of authorship for the buildings on the list of architectural landmarks, that was created in 1980, should be viewed with a great deal of skepticism.

According to the 1909 list of Kharkiv property owners, the courtyard of the house at number 8 extended all the way to Yurievsky Lane and belonged to the merchant Froim-Yuda Davydovich Moldavsky.

Nevertheless, it is also impossible to conclude that he was the owner of this house based solely on this list, since the house could have been built after 1909, the owner could have sold the property, and there could have been a mix-up with the addresses on the street itself, as has happened on numerous occasions.

But in any case, the house is beautiful. It is a fine example of Art Nouveau architecture, with the original window glazing bars of the main staircase still intact.

Gareth Jones was a Welsh journalist who visited Ukraine in March 1933 and was the first to report on the horrors of the Holodomor in the Western press.