Many people love Kontorska for the cozy look that the 1-2-story “merchant” houses of the second half of the 19th century give it. They flow into each other and create a continuous historical fabric of the street.

One of these fragments of historical fabric was the architectural landmark at Kontorska Street, 18. In fact, this building still exists, but its appearance was distorted beyond recognition – it was not damaged by enemy bombs, but by the negligence of city services, multiplied by a tragic coincidence.

This eclectic (one might even say neoclassical) house was built around the 1870s-80s. In 1882, it belonged to Baroness Elena Ivanovna Von-Spengler, the wife of a staff captain.

Later, the lists of homeowners included other representatives of the ancient Spengler family, whose roots can be traced back to the time of Friedrich Barbarossa: Eduard Karlovich Spengler and his children (1887), Natalia Martynivna Spengler, the wife of a state councilor (1892, 1901).

In 1909, the owner of the house was Grigory Konstantinovich Utkin, a hereditary honorary citizen. The Utkin family belonged to merchants who had a huge fortune and a lot of real estate in Kharkiv, the most famous of which is the apartment building at Gogolya Street, 11. The Kazans’ka Church in Kharkiv was built mostly with the funds of Konstantin Utkin – Grigory’s father.

Grigory himself owned a paper shop and Torgova Square in the center of Kharkiv, which could boast a huge assortment of supplies for office workers and students.

After the 1917 revolution, Grigory Utkin emigrated, and in 1931 he was buried in Belgrade.

Despite the neglect, the house retained its authentic appearance until 2018. It was then that the city authorities decided to renovate Kontorska and decorate some of its buildings with elements of street art in the form of constellations. But the renovations were done on a budget, as a result of which many of the houses lost their original details, like a JPEG image that was repeatedly sent through messengers. For example, on the house at Kontorska, 18, part of the stucco molding was knocked down and not restored, and it itself became bright orange.

On September 25, 2020, a tragedy occurred on the second floor of the house – a fire that killed two people. The roof also burned down. Although a significant part of the internal, wooden structure of the building was severely damaged by fire and water, the huge oak beams of the ceilings survived. The renovation of the house after the fire was delayed, in 2021, the KP “Zhylkomservis” without coordination with the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning knocked down all the stucco molding to bare brick and abandoned the work.

We hope that someday this house will be restored.