Description of the attraction
House of merchant V. P. Oplesnina is the oldest building of Sovetskaya Street in the city of Syktyvkar. The building is a historical and cultural monument. Protected by the state.
This two-storey stone house, owned by the merchant of the 2nd guild, Vasily Petrovich Oplesnin, was built on Spasskaya Street (today Sovetskaya) in the first quarter of the city of Ust-Sysolsk (today Syktyvkar) at planned location No. 5.
Oplesnin V. P. was the son of a merchant peasant from the Vylgorotskaya volost. He continued his trading business after the death of his father. In 1881 he bought 1,5 thousand acres of land, including arable, hay, forest, as well as land under lakes, streams, roads. Having become one of the large county landowners, he got the opportunity to become a member of the county zemstvo assembly. In 1886 V. P. Oplesnin receives permission to open a retail store at the planned location No. 6 of the first quarter in a two-story wooden house that belonged to his ancestors. In 1891, he opened his own logging business, the profit from which gave him the opportunity to build a new two-story stone house, on the ground floor of which there was a shop. The store sold tobacco, manufactured goods, copper and iron products. Oplesnin's annual income was about 25 thousand rubles, which allowed him to overcome the class barrier and in 1894 he was expelled from the number of peasants.
In addition to trading in the shop, Oplesnin supplied bread for the district. In 1906, in Slobodskoy volost on his own estate "Chevyu", he built a mill and a tannery with 13 vats for urinating and subsequent tanning of leather. On the eve of the First World War, the volume of timber trade at Oplesnin also increased. In addition to trade, the merchant was also engaged in social activities. In 1896 he was elected a member of the Tax Presence. In 1901, he became the chairman of the board of trustees of the Ust-Sysolsk women's gymnasium and the representative of the zemstvo in the Veliko-Ustyug Stefano-Prokopyevsky brotherhood. In 1906 he became an honorary magistrate. Also, Vasily Petrovich Oplesnin was a member of the commission for the construction of the Stefanovskaya church, and then became its headman.
The culmination of Oplesnin's public activity was his appointment as chairman of the zemstvo council in 1907. After the revolution, the merchant lost all the property acquired by 50 years of efforts. In 1919, he continued to live in Ust-Sysolsk in someone else's apartment and was considered by the authorities to be a non-working element.
The two-storey stone merchant house was municipalized. In the fall of 1918, the living upper floor was converted into a working dining-tea room, while a shop continued to remain on the lower floor.
From the 1930s to 1996, the Pharmaceutical Administration of the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was located in the former house of Oplesnin. From 1997 to 2007, it housed the Finno-Ugric Center for Educational Programs. In April 2007 he moved to another building. Now it houses the Office of the FSB and the Educational Center of Russian Germans.
