FILARMONSKA SQUARE

Filarmonska ("Philharmonic”) square is tiny and flirty. It’s not surprising that it changed its name so often being Rudolfplatz, Dacia or Victory square. Although old city residents use to name it Mehlplatz ("Flour square”). Bread flour was widely traded here in the first half of the XIX century but then this land plot was taken under detention and occupied by a gunpowder depot, food supply depot (1777), brickyard, military quarters (1787) and a prison (1787). No doubt, the new neighbourhood made the square a gloomy place.

This situation changed only in the 1860 when Mehlplatz changed its actual status from outskirts to the city center. The quarters and powder depots moved to the territory of today’s T.Shevchenko park and the prison was replaced by the proud stone building of National hotel (Tolstoy st. 2, now occupied by a building of the Finance and Law University).

Bukovyna is a land of song. In 1862 city residents established the Music Society and in April 1876 the first stone in the foundation of the future society accommodation was laid in Mehlplatz. In December 1877 the building was finished and welcomed a number of outstanding personalities through its almost 150 year-long life.

The five-storey building of Bristol hotel is another architectural dominant of the square. Its room are now rented to students of Bukovyna State Medical University. Next to this "skyscraper” is an old decorative water pump reminding us of the times when aesthetics was as important as functionality. Even the fence near Bristol saves the shape of its predecessor from the 1930s.

GALLERY (click photos to enlarge)

Former Bristol hotel