Biletsky street, 4
Building,
Gomel, Biletsky str., 4
The building is two-storeyed, rectangular in plan. The main facade of the symmetrical composition faces Biletsky Street. The rhythm is set by a row of blades that intersperse three single window openings in the center and double ones on the sides. On the ground floor, the blades are rusticated. At the level of the second floor, the blades flanking the facade are decorated with shallow niches with flutes and – above – rosettes with decorative plaster, and the central ones are only bases and cornices. The interstory cornice is narrow profiled, a wider cornice is placed under the roof. Rectangular window openings on the ground floor are decorated with profiled platbands, on the second – flat, complemented by rectangular sandricks with stair cornices and panels decorated with plaster. The combination of various decorative elements makes it possible to attribute the building to the eclectic style.
Biletsky street (at the end of the XIX century – Millionnaya Street), as well as the main square to which it led and on which major fairs were held three times a year, took shape at the beginning of the XIX century, thanks to the new layout of Gomel. The project of the building, known as the «German inn» (most likely for foreign merchants), was developed by architect John Clark in the 1820s. At the same time, construction was also carried out. The first floor was stone, the second – wooden. Immediately behind the house was a two-story stone wing with a kitchen. The buildings were connected together through wooden galleries on two floors. In 1890 the building belonged to the merchant of the second guild Nekhamkin Tsodzik Leibov.
There is no information about how the building was used before the Great Patriotic War. During the war, it suffered significantly, and in 1946 it was restored. According to archival documents, in 1967 the second floor was used as a residential one, and the first floor housed a public dining room, later a buffet of the Polytechnic college. In 1983, due to the emergency condition, the residents of the house were evicted. After major repairs, the building was leased to the Gomel regional organization «Belarusian Republican Rescue Society on the Waters». Since 1994 the basement of the building is used by various catering organizations.
Beletsky street, house №.4.
Beletsky street, house №.4. Photo 2022.