House of the Russian Society for Animal Welfare, St. Petersburg
Address: 4th Sovetskaya Street d. 5
Metro: Ploschad' Vosstaniya
If you will pass by the house number 5 on the 4th Sovetskoy (Rozhdestvensko) street, lift your head upstairs and consider the decorative frieze between the fifth and fourth floors. You will see figures of domestic and wild animals, birds, a total of fifteen. A lion, an elk, a hare, a ram, a mountain goat, a goose and a hen, two horses (presumably, domestic and wild), five dogs of different breeds and a kitten.
The history of the appearance of this unusual house on 4th Rozhdestvenskaya Street reflects the evolution of a person’s attitude towards our smaller brothers in the 19th century. The building was originally designed and built for the veterinary hospital of the Russian Society for the Protection of Animals, which for that time (the First World War was going on!) Was an incredible luxury.
According to some reports, the sculptor on the frieze of the building carved portraits of genuine visitors to the hospital.
The project and construction supervision were entrusted to the architect Iosif Dolginov, a graduate of the Academy of Arts, who had already built more than ten apartment buildings on the Petrogradskaya side and Vasilyevsky Island. Money for the construction was collected by the whole world.
The House of the Russian Society for Animal Welfare can be visited as a part of a city tour.
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