Description of the attraction
One of the notable places of the city of Kingisepp is the building of the previously operating City Hall, which is located on Bolshaya Sovetskaya Street, house 8. The building is surrounded by numerous five-storey buildings of the same type, so at first glance it stands out favorably against their background.
The Town Hall is a mansion built in the style of Romanesque architecture, which was especially typical for Western Europe. The building was intended to house the city council. The author of the project was the zemstvo architect K. K. Vasiliev from Yamburg. Construction work on the new building began in the summer of 1910. All the local nobility, clergy, merchants, as well as city dwellers and peasants from nearby villages were invited to the ceremony of laying the foundation.
The construction of the city administration building was carried out from limestone, which served as a local building material. The decoration of the town hall was somewhat intricate, as indicated by the numerous turrets, voluminous arcades and unusual window openings. There is an assumption that precisely because of the similarity with foreign buildings, the building began to be called the town hall. The new city administration was built without sparing funds for unusual decorative elements.
As you know, the population of the city of Yamburg was only four thousand people, of which about half were soldiers, for which reason it was possible to abandon such a massive administrative apparatus. But this did not happen, because in the pre-revolutionary period Russia was dominated by a powerful bureaucratic system, however, as now. During the construction process, some monetary problems with financing arose - that is why the construction of the city hall was delayed for a long time, namely until the beginning of 1917, with the advent of which came a difficult time of devastation, and later - Soviet power.
The building of the city administration was completed only by 1934. After finishing the finishing works, the Twelfth Turkestan Regiment was placed here. Thus, the building of the town hall turned into a place for rehearsals for a military orchestra, the music of loud marches was heard from the windows with a rumble - so vividly were the gatherings of the regimental orchestra.
During the German occupation of the city, the town hall building was a concentration camp intended for civilians and Soviet prisoners of war. During the liberation of the city of Kingisepp, the remnants of the Romanian regiment, maintaining contact with the Nazis, defended in the town hall, but soon the enemy was defeated. During this difficult period in the history of the entire city, the city building was badly damaged due to hostilities.
Until the early 1960s, the town hall was not rebuilt. After carrying out large-scale renovations, it turned into a city hospital, then became a hostel and was again converted into a children's clinic. According to some reports, at one time the economic department of the executive committee was also located here.
After Russia passed the Great Patriotic War, Bolshaya Sovetskaya Street also changed - the post-war restoration made it completely typical with a stereotyped similarity of buildings. The street layout has become inconvenient due to the wide carriageway, which creates discomfort for pedestrians, and the numbering of houses has become completely chaotic. Even residents of the city began to call the street not Bolshaya Sovetskaya, but Former Sovetskaya.
Today, the building of the previously existing city hall houses the city dental clinic, the "Family" center, as well as a special committee dealing with sports, culture and youth policy "Choice" with the support of the city administration. A memorial plaque is hung on the building, which contains a list of former prisoners of the German fascist camp.
