According to information posted on the official website of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration’s Department of Urban Planning and Architecture, it turns out that there is an architectural landmark of national significance located at No. 20003 in the beautiful city of Liubotyn.

For those who don’t know, I’m talking about the Maslovich estate, better known as the “Svyatopolk-Mirsky estate.” To be honest, though, it would be more accurate to call it not a historic site, but “ruins of national significance.” And there are fewer and fewer of them every year.
For comparison, here are a few photos from 2015.

And here are the ones I took on April 24, 2019.

While the building was still more or less safe in 2015, the risk of being injured or even buried under debris has increased many times over.

The most disappointing thing is that the estate in Hiyivka (which is now literally falling apart before our eyes) was one of the first estate buildings that our ancestors began to restore immediately after the city’s liberation, even before the war had ended. Details about the condition of the estate after the Germans left can be found in a document dated September 4, 1944:

1. Pursuant to Order No. 236 of the Committee on Architectural Affairs under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, dated June 29, 1944, an inspection was conducted of the architectural landmark located in the village of Hiyivka, Kharkiv District, Kharkiv Region, near the Liubotyn station on the Southern Railway, on the site of the former estate of Prince Svyatopolk-Mirsky, consisting of a single residential building currently administered by the Kharkiv Regional Department of Public Education and used as a children’s home.
2. The building is one story in the central section and two stories in the side wings. The building is 65 meters long, with a width of 12 meters in the central section. It has brick foundations and walls. The walls are 2 ½ bricks thick. The roof and downspouts are made of iron and require repair. The floors are wooden plank and require painting and repair. The floors are supported by wooden beams. Inside, the walls and ceilings are plastered and smooth. The exterior walls are also plastered and require repair. The staircase is wooden and in satisfactory condition.
3. There are three entrances to the building. One is the main entrance, located in the central part of the north side, and the second, on the south side, is no longer in use. The side wings contain utility annexes. The central section of the building features a corridor running along the longitudinal axis, with separate rooms on one side of it. Separate rooms are located in the side wings. A small hall is situated opposite the main entrance. The windows in the central section have semicircular lintels, while those in the side sections are pointed and arched. Many of them are without glass and have been bricked up.
4. A shell struck the right wing, piercing the roof, the attic floor, and the floor between stories. The shell exploded in the basement, where the boiler room was located. As a result, the floor slab beneath the basement is missing, and all the floor slabs in this section require restoration. A temporary covering has been installed on the roof over the damaged section. There are no basements beneath the building, and the aforementioned boiler room was constructed much later and had floors supported by steel beams.
5. The building’s park-facing facade is adorned with pilasters and features a cornice with a slight overhang along its entire perimeter. Above the cornice is a small attic that raises the attic portion of the building.
6. There is a park near the estate, which is currently in a state of neglect.

To prevent the building from collapsing, the authors of the document proposed carrying out the following work:

1. Roof repair.
2. Gutter repair.
3. Glazing or boarding up window openings.

It was also proposed to impose a complete ban on any renovations without permission from the Regional Department of Architecture.

Almost a year later, in September–August, architects inspected the site again. At that time, they determined that in the village of Hiyivka, located within the city limits of Lyubotin, there are three structures under state protection, designated as architectural landmarks:

— The Svyatopolk-Mirsky estate, which houses a children’s home.
— The estate wing—“currently used as a collective farm club”—
The church—“the building is currently not in use.”

Architect Lazarenko, who had visited the site, provided the following description of the general layout:

The very harmonious arrangement of these structures within the overall layout of the village of Hiyivka is particularly noteworthy. Their placement, which makes superb use of the terrain and landscape, compensates for—and perhaps even makes up for—the architectural shortcomings of each individual structure. The palace, the church, and the wing, combined with the mirror-like surface of the pond, the green carpet of the square in front of them, and the strip of forest turning blue in the distance, create an interestingly organized, cohesive architectural center for the village spread out along the banks of the pond.

It probably looked like one of those pre-revolutionary photos:

The description noted that by 1945, the original appearance of the estate itself had already been significantly altered as a result of additions and renovations, which fundamentally distorted—rather than improved—the building’s architecture.

During the hostilities of 1941–1943, shell and bomb explosions damaged the load-bearing walls of the south facade, destroyed the roof, a significant portion of the plaster was knocked off, and all the window and door frames were severely damaged. The central boiler room was destroyed by a direct shell hit.

After the liberation of the town of Liubotyn from the Germans, the building was transferred to an orphanage, which has since carried out significant work to prevent further damage to the structure. Holes in the walls have been bricked up. The window openings have been partially bricked up and partially restored and glazed. Local heating stoves are being reinstalled. Holes in the roof have been patched, and leaks have been repaired. The interior rooms have been whitewashed and restored to a condition suitable for habitation.

Today, the estate’s L-shaped wing, with a circular hall at its center, looks like this:

During World War II, the roof was severely damaged by the fighting, and the window and door openings were completely destroyed. Nevertheless, as early as 1946, one could still see remnants of the once-beautiful interior inside the circular hall in the form of capitalized pilasters.

Subsequently, a restoration plan for the palace was drawn up, and the work was partially carried out in 1946–1947. However, there was a fly in the ointment—the architects and restorers still had to travel to Hiyivka occasionally due to complaints about substandard work being carried out there.

In 1949, the first three protective plaques were sent to Kharkiv and the surrounding region from the Department of Landmark Preservation of the Architecture Administration under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR—for landmarks of all-Union and republican significance. One was placed on the building of the Pokrovsky Monastery, the second on the estate in Staryi Merchik, and the third on the palace in Hiyivka. In our progressive times, however, the fact that the estate in Hiyivka is an architectural landmark can be learned from the following:

In 1952, the wing was renovated using funds from the Kharkiv Oblast budget. And in 1953–1954, repair and restoration work was carried out on the estate building at a cost of 70,000 rubles: the roof and floors were replaced, and the building was whitewashed and painted.

In 1955, efforts were also made to save the once-beautiful estate park in Hiyivka, which was “of historical value.” Documents from that time describe it as follows:

The park in the town of Lyubotin, Kharkiv District (the former estate of Svyatopolk-Mirsky), covers a large area (over 40 hectares) of forest. There are five ponds within the park grounds. Mighty old oak trees have been preserved. In terms of its overall layout, the park is classified as a free-form landscape park. Currently, the park is in a state of neglect and requires cleanup and maintenance. Lyubotinsky Park is a favorite recreational spot for Kharkiv residents. Further study of the park’s territory and layout is necessary.

The first decade after the war was, in every respect, extremely difficult not only for Kharkiv but for the entire country as a whole. However, I am certain that those who saved the estate in Hiyivka back then could not have imagined, even in their worst nightmares, what is happening to it now…