Description of the attraction
One of the most striking architectural sights of the city of Zhytomyr is the former men's gymnasium, now it is the main building of the I. Frank Zhytomyr State University.
The first men's gymnasium, opened in 1833, is one of the oldest secondary educational institutions in Right-Bank Ukraine. The gymnasium had great cultural and pedagogical traditions. Initially, the gymnasium was housed in a wooden building on Malaya Berdichevskaya Street, and belonged to V. Gansky, and after death - to his wife E. Gansky, who became world famous, having won the heart of Honore de Balzac with her letters.
In the mid-1850s, a stone house was built by the new owners, in which the gymnasium was housed until 1862, since later a separate room was erected for it on Bolshaya Berdichevskaya Street, where the central building of the university is located today. It was a fairly well-arranged and comfortable house, which contained rooms for 17 classrooms.
At the beginning, the main building was built, and after a while two additional buildings (wings) were added on the sides - for the library and apartments in which the teachers of the gymnasium lived. In front of the main entrance to the gymnasium, there was a front garden with rare species of trees and a fountain in the center. There was a large garden not far from the buildings.
The complex has been completely preserved to this day, and the educational building of the gymnasium was reconstructed immediately after the pedagogical institute was opened in it in 1919. He inherited from the gymnasium the entire material base, a huge library, a meteorological station and most of the teachers. Today it is Zhytomyr State University named after I. Franko.
