The monuments of history and culture of Kyakhta

Some buildings in Kyakhta are declared to be the monuments of history and culture, the part of them are used now by different organizations and, therefore, they are maintained, but the part of them are found in the condition that requires restoration. Several houses with rather original architecture have been preseved and nowadays they are the adornment of the streets of the town.

Gostiny dvor.( A building for visitors, a hotel, an inn). One of bright evidence of blossoming of Kyakhtinskaya trade are monumental buildings of Gostiny dvor, the construction of which had begun in 1835 and finished in 1842.

It was built due to financial means of the State exchequer and the Department of foreign trade under the petition of the Irkutsk general – governor. The Gostiny dvor represented two huge buildings constructed as the closed rectangulars (one inside another). The external capital building had 72 rooms. The internal building was divided by passages into four parts and consisted of brick columns and easy wooden constructions. The total height of the building is 35,4m.

In 1865 the Exchequer transferred the Gostiny dvor to the Kyakhtinsky merchants, who had to maintain and repair the buildings. For these purposes the merchants of Kyakhta annually allocated 8-10 thousand roubles from special gathering - "aksidentsia" which was paid at export of tea from Kyakhta. In 1900 in the part of the building of Gostiny dvor the custom-house was placed. In 1953 the building was transferred to the Ministry of local industry of Buryat АSSR, and since 1955 the Kyakhtinskaya spinning-knitting factory was settled there.

Later, the building was subjected to significant rebuilding: crossing walls were removed, new apertures for illumination were punched, especially on the part of the yard. Some flat decorative niches of an external facade were turned into the windows of the same form. These changes significantly deformed the image of Gostiny dvor, which in its architecture a little differed from other Russian gostiny dvors (inns) as it reproduced more ancient sample of structures of similar kind. Now the part of Gostiny dvor is used by the Kyakhtinskaya spinning-knitting factory which also possesses a small hotel in it, another part is in an ownerless condition.

The house of A.M.Lushnikov – the Kyakhtinsky merchant, an outstanding public figure of the region, the pupil and the close friend of the Decembrists. As L.K.Minert wrote in his book “ The monuments of architecture of Buryatia ” “the architecture of the house... has developed as a result of superstructures and extensions, (its) initial nucleus – an erected in the middle of XIX century one of the first in this place stone one-storeyed house with an attic. The facade of a house is processed with rustovka, wedged crosspieces above apertures of windows. Probably, in 1870-s years the second higher floor was added, it was wooden, but plastered. Its big windows have wooden platbands, decorated above with carved volutes. The facade is continued by a stone fencing with a grandiose three-parted construction of a gate. The architecture of the house has the expression of an interesting interlacing of various creative principles - from cold strict classicism up to wide folklore fantasy ”.

The house is supposed to subject restoration, then in its rooms the Museum of remarkable people of Kyakhta will be placed. In 1840-1860-s years the house of Lushnikov was visited by the Decembrists N.A. and M.A. Bestuzhevy, K.P.Torson, I.I.Gorbachevsky, I.I.Pushchin, S.P.Trubetskoy and S.G.Volkonsky with their families, M.K.Jushnevskaya. In 70-90-s years of the last century guests of Lushnikov were famous travellers and researchers of the Central Asia: N.M.Przhevalsky, G.N. and A.V.Potaniny, D.A.Klements, P.K.. Kozlov, V.A. Obruchev, an American traveller Dzh. Kennan and many others. In this house in 1865 D.N.Prjanishnikov, subsequently the academician, the Hero of Socialist Labour, the founder of native agrochemistry, was born.

The Gostinye Ryady (The houses for guests) To the period of the highest peak of Russian-Chinese trade refers the monumental building of the Gostinye Ryady in Troitskosavsk, erected in 1847-1853 on the place of the burnt in the fire in April 1843 a wooden Gostiny Dvor (a house for visitors). It represents a rectangular building with galleries along the longitudinal sides, which consists of eleven almost identical sections. Initially the average section was intended for a passage. Each section had two exits to galleries, light penetrated through the glazed doors with heavy two-folding stavny. Wooden floors of the section are divided into two circles, the top circle served for storing goods and was lightened through semicircular window. The main facades are formed by eleven-passaged arcades, squeezed from both sides with thick face walls on which three-passaged arcades lay out in a flat relief. The arches of the main facade are based on square columns between which there are four steps conducting to galleries. In 1977 the restoration of the building was carried out, nowadays shops are settled in it having the common name “Torgovye Ryady” ( Trading Rows).

The house of A.D.Startsev. Among few merchant houses preserved to our days, the house of the merchant A.D.Startsev is also famous. In 1894 the adviser of commerce Startsev offered his two-storeyed stone house for accommodation of collections of the museum, that worked by the Troitskosavsk-Kyakhta branch of the Russian Geographical Society. After the official opening of the branch and the museum he was elected the honorary member of the branch. A.D.Startsev was also the member of East-Siberian department of Russian Geographical Society, he collected historical documents and materials about Zabaikalye and showed great interest to local, including Kyakhtinskaya, periodicals.

The town school. Nowadays this is the building of Kyakhtinsky museum of regional studies named after V.A.Obruchev.

The Posolsky Dom. (The ambassadorial house). One of the oldest buildings of Kyakhta constructed, probably, in XVIII century. It received its name because due to the legend, members of the Russian missions (embassies) stayed in it, going through Kyakhta to Mongolia and China. In 1830-1832 in this house worked P.L. Shilling and N.Y.Bichurin, famous Russian orientalists. They visited Kyakhta with the expedition, which had the tasks to study the condition of the Russian-Chinese trade, and also to gather historical-ethnographic materials about the life of the Buryats and the Mongols.