A city’s historical fabric is not limited to architectural landmarks. When a street is lined with old, albeit unremarkable, houses, the street itself becomes a “landmark,” immersing passersby in the atmosphere of the city’s antiquity and history. As the number of such buildings on a street dwindles, they must be preserved with redoubled effort. Alas, there are a glaring number of examples of historic buildings being deliberately demolished in Kharkiv in the late 2010s.

For example, the building that housed the convoy police headquarters on Yuliia Chyhyryna Street. Demolition began during the construction of the “Manufaktura” IT park, and in September 2020, it was completely destroyed by fire.

Or a house on Klasychnyi Lane.

It had been abandoned long ago, and was finally dismantled for bricks in August 2019.

The former tuberculosis hospitalon Chornoglazivska Street was demolished to make way for the construction of the “Brussels” residential complex.

But the house at Metalista Street, 5, has met with a strange fate. This workers’ cottage, an architectural landmark (registration number 461), was built in 1924 according to a design by architect V. Trotsenko. There are several other similar standard-design houses in this neighborhood.

In 2017, two such buildings at 7 and 9 Sportyvnyi Lane (which are also architectural landmarks) were demolished and stripped of their bricks; the remains were used to add another story to a different, but similar building at Metalista Street, 5.