Name: Chocolate house

Description:

Chocolate house

Stone garlands, leaves and small faces of lions grace the facade of the building at 17/2 Shovkovychna Street which has been traditionally referred to as “the chocolate house” — it is painted in the dark-brown colour which does give the facade a chocolate look. The decorative elements only enhance this chocolate association. The house used to be owned in a succession by a general, a baroness, and a merchant, and after the revolution of 1917 and massive nationalization, another succession of tenants made up of ministers, politicians and scientists had their residence behind the chocolate walls. In the 1960s–1980s the building housed the Central Marriage Registry Office where marriages were legally certified by government officials who officiated at the solemn ceremonies accompanied by the appropriate music wearing long velvet dark-red robes and wishing the newly-weds happiness in married life. It so happened that the author’s parents were also happily married at the chocolate house.

The stone faces of the dogs that can be seen doting the second floor are said to have been commissioned by the timber merchant Semen Mohylyovtsev, one of the owners of the house in the early twentieth century, who was known as a great enthusiast of hunting.