A 1908 photo depicts a storehouses and shops complex belonging to the Provodnik Russian-French company engaged in the production of rubber and gutta-percha things, as well as products for telegraphy. Rubber galoshes (overshoes) were one of the most popular articles of trade on bourgeois Khreshchatyk street, an invariable garment, an imported Western article. In the conditions when only main Kyiv streets were paved, and most marshes and streams had not yet been drained or directed to manifolds or spillways, galoshes were used by representatives of all strata of the city population. Moreover, production of waterproof footwear was a most difficult technical task at that time.

Its architecture was interesting, in particular, that of the side avant-corps, constructed in the Classicist style with a refined attic. On the right one can see a very characteristic two-storied building with an attic level, which had an open brickwork façade and segmental windows. It was either a storehouse or even a shop. Industrial structures of this kind, belonging to the so-called “brick architecture”, radically changed the image of many European cities, beginning from Austria, England or France.

Olga Martyniuk