Travel Tips

This street used to be the central one in the city before the center moved up the hill to what is now Sovietskaya Street.
St.Petersburg Street was renamed by the Bolsheviks in the twenties of the last century along with lots of other city streets. It became Lenin Street.
The postcard shows "Europe" hotel.

This old square is now called Revolution Square.
In Novenber 1917 the former Parliament's minority - the Bolsheviks - seized the power. They decided this old square should remind them of Red Square in Moscow and they renamed Assumption Square into Red Square. Thus we have "the local Red Square" like the one in Moscow.
To enhance the resemblance effect the local Bolsheviks (who changed their name into Communists in 1952) even began to bury their heroes in that square in 1917 and did that until 1947 when the last burial ceremony was held.
Thus there are two common graves in Revolution Square.
One of them dates back to 1917. It's the grave of the fallen participants of the Bolshevik uprising - the workers of city factories - who fell in street battles then.
Another common grave dates back to 1943 when several Soviet officers were buried here. They were participants of the liberation of the city from Nazi invaders in February 1943.
You can also see five separate graves there, among them:
- the tomb of Alexander Parkhomenko, a Red Army's cavalry general, a legendary Civil War hero, who lost his life in January 1921 in central Ukraine, but was transfered to Luhansk and reburied here in 1935 on request of his former comrades-in-arms.
- the tomb of Ivan Yakovenko, a Communist party functionary, who headed Luhansk partisan detachment during the Nazi occupation. His detachment was only active for about a month after the Nazis had occupied the city on July 17, 1942. Ivan was killed in August 1942 during a Nazi raid on the partisans in Luhansk.
- three tombs of local Communist party leaders:
two bosses: Ivan Boginia who duied in January 1944 ;
Ivan Oreshko who died in November 1947
and one old Bolshevik Aleksey Alekseyev (1877-1947)
whose party nickname was "Koom" - "Godfather".
Alexeyev was a close friend of Clement Voroshilov (1881-1969), our fellow countryman, a five-star general. Alexeyev's party name became a part of his last name and is written on his tombstone: Alexeyev-Koom.
There is Alekseyev Block downtown now, but I doubt if everybody knows who the block was named after.

This roads leads to what is now Dahl monument located in front of that two-storey mansion with columns.
The former mansion was turned into a water and healing mud treatment hospital after 1917.

It was one of the central streets of old Luhansk.
It led to the theater and the city park.

This house was in Post Street near the Old Market.
It belonged to the family of a rich Jewish merchant Venderovich.
It was more like a castle with its numerous rooms and basements.
It was rebuilt after 1917 and turned into Fine Arts Museum.
The Venderovich family did not leave the city and perished during the Nazi occupation of Luhansk in early November 1942 when the Nazi invaders invited all the Jews to Jerusalem by sending them picturesque invitations. They even ordered all the aircrafts not to switch off their engines at dawn. The Nazis gathered all the Jews at the central stadium and took them all to the southern outskirts in trucks and treacherously murdered more than 3,000 Jewish residents of Luhansk.
Now there is a Jewish war memorial there.
It is called We Won't Forget, We Won't Forgive!
Rest in peace, victims of Nazism!

Here is another angle of Venderovich House again.
The horse carts are from the Hay Market located nearby.

This postcard depicts the Azov-and-Don bank in Kazan Street (now this street is Karl Marx Street).
To the left of the bank building you can see the building of the city council.
The old bank building houses another bank now.

And this cathedral was blown up by the Bolsheviks in 1935.