“We’ve got our own Art Deco here, with exchange offices and miners.” On Hryhoriia Skovorody St, 5.

The Donvugillya Trust building was constructed in 1925 by architect I. Lamaev; the sculptures were created by Ivan Kavaleridze. During construction, a three-story wing built in 1914 to a design by architect M. Piskunov for the Moscow Merchant Bank (originally the Trade Bank) was incorporated into the rear of this new building.

In 1927, Theodore Dreiser visited Kharkiv, where he “wandered through this huge, imposing-looking gray stone building for some time searching for the right department, until he found the offices of the American Commission.”

Some researchers consider the building to be one of the few Art Deco structures in Kharkiv (albeit with a Constructivist influence).

In the early 1980s, one of Kavaleridze’s sculptures was destroyed. The Kharkiv Sculpture Factory created a replica based on the surviving sculpture.

The building was damaged during a Russian missile strike on the Nikolsky shopping center in the spring of 2022 and lost some of its windows.