The postcard shows various important buidings in Chernivtsi (Czernowitz) on the eve of the first world war, when the city was the capital of the Bukowina, the most eastern province (Kronland) of the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. <br />In those days Chernivtsi had around 70.000 inhabitants, looking back on 150 years of rapid growth since it became part of the Habsburg Empire in 1774, when there were just 290 families living there. Chernivtsi was the only provincial capital (Landeshauptstadt) which was entirely built under the Austrian administration, which clearly shows both in the layout of the city and in the architecture. <br />The card shows: the Children's Hospital (Kinderspital), a donation of Moses and Chaja Fischer in occasion of the 60th anniversary of Emperor Franz Josef's coronation 1908, which still serves as such; the police headquater (Polizeidirektion), which was later used by the Romanian Siguranta and the Soviet KGB; the Siebenbürger Strasse leading southwards towards southern Bukowina and Transylvania; the palace of justice (Justizpalais) built in 1906; the seat of the provincial government (Landesregierung) buit in 1873; the chamber of commerce with the Kaiser coffeehouse (Bukowiner Handels- und Gewerbekammer mit Kaiser Cafe), built in 1910; the pedestrian and street-bridge across the Pruth (Pruth-Brücke); the main street (Hauptstrasse); the Town Hall Street (Rathausstrasse); the theatre built in 1905 with the monument of Friedrich Schiller (Stadttheater mit Schiller Denkmal) and the central railway station finished in 1909 (Haupt-Bahnhof). <br /><em>Helmut Kusdat</em>