Visit Astana - Top 10 historical sites of the capital

Mansion of the Merchant Vasily Kubrin (currently – the City Archive)

(41 Kenesary St.)

Date of construction: 1910-1912

The mansion of the merchant Vasily Kubrin was built in 1910 by a Moscow architect. Vasily Kubrin is the son of Matvey Kubrin, an Akmola-based merchant who lived in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. He was the founder of the “Matvey Kubrin, Sons and Co” Trading Partnership.

The mansion is a 1.5-storey house with an underground passage connecting it with a store. There are also stables with carriages and a stone cellar barn. The underground passage was later walled up. An English-style garden was planted in the courtyard of the estate.

The mansion is also associated with historical events. It once housed a Workers’ and Peasants’ Club, a library, and then a district executive committee. In the 1950s-1960s, the mansion accommodated Young Pioneer Palace and the city’s Education Department. In the mid-1960s, the estate was turned into the Museum of Local History.

In 2000-2019, the property housed the Embassy of Ukraine. Currently, it is owned by the City Archive.

Trading House of the Merchant Kubrin (currently – “Astana” Supermarket)

(37 Kenesary St.)

Date of construction: 1905-1907

The building was constructed in 1905-1907 in the Art Nouveau style for the “Matvey Kubrin, Sons and Co” Trading Partnership.

The partnership founder, Matvey Kubrin, was a merchant of the first guild of Akmola. According to the Siberian Trade and Industrial Yearbook, his enterprise “sold medicine, drapery, haberdashery, jewelry, stationery, clothing, footwear, watches, tea, and sugar.” After 1915, he opened an office in Moscow, leaving the trading house in Akmolinsk for his son Vasily.

After the October Revolution, the building housed the Central City Library, Tsentropechat, and the County Economic Department. During the repressions of the 1930s, the basement of the building housed prison cells for the NKVD troika. Over time, the building was returned to its original purpose.

In Soviet times, the store was called “Rainbow”. In 1944, a fire destroyed all the wooden structures and the store was abandoned for almost ten years. By the decision of the regional executive committee of January 30, 1984, the building received the status of a monument of historical and cultural importance. The building is now known as the Astana Supermarket.

Mansion of the Merchant Moiseev (currently – Hospital for Veterans of the Great Patriotic War)

(28 A. Mambetova St.)

Date of construction: 1914-1918

The mansion was built in 1914-1918. The red brick building was supposed to be the largest and most unusual in the city, with its window openings being built in the style of the early Renaissance. After the revolution, the property was occupied by the Regional Council of Workers, Soldiers, and Muslim Deputies. Today it houses the Republican Hospital for Veterans of the Great Patriotic War.

Kosshygulov Muslim School (currently – Halyk Bank)

(24 Abay Ave.)

Date of construction: 1905

The building was originally owned by Baymukhambet Kosshygulov, a merchant of the first guild, the owner of a confectionery and gingerbread factory in the city of Akmolinsk. The Kosshygulov family also owned a mill and sold kerosene and oil. Kurmangali, Baymukhambet’s son, was elected a Presiding Officer of the City Council. His other son – Shaimardan – was elected a Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Empire of the 1^st and the 2nd Convocations.

Baimukhambet Kosshygulov has built a mosque and a Sunday school for Muslim youth at his own expense. In the 1930s it housed a Local History Museum, in 1940 – a brewery, in the 1970s it was demolished.

Classes at the school were free for everyone, regardless of social status and religion, the teachers worked free of charge. Boys and girls studied together. Saken Seifullin, an outstanding poet and writer, taught Russian literature and the native language at this school.

The building was originally a one-story building. In 1986, without taking into account its historical and cultural value, the building was reconstructed and the second floor was added, which changed the appearance of the building.

Merchant House (currently – Saken Seifullin Museum)

(20 Mukhtar Auezov St.)

Date of construction: 1846

The oldest building in the capital is the modern-day Saken Seifullin Museum built in 1846. 171 years ago, a merchant built a one-story house with a basement for keeping records of purchased goods. In the 20th century, it housed the Zorka kindergarten. On February 20, 1988, thirty years after the posthumous rehabilitation of Saken Seifullin, a museum was opened in the building by the order of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR.

Mansion of Doctor Blagoveshchensky (currently – Administration of the Saken Seifullin Museum)

(20 Mukhtar Auezov St.)

Date of construction: early 20th century

This house belonged to the famous doctor Fyodor Blagoveshchensky, where he lived and received patients for about 40 years. The building is also a monument of wooden architecture of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, made in the eclectic style typical of that time. Once it housed a school of accountants, and today it is the administration of the Saken Seifullin Museum.

City Administration Building (currently – Ticket Office of the State Academic Russian Drama Theater named after M. Gorky)

(13 Zheltoksan St.)

Date of construction: 1880

The one-story building of the Akmolinsk City Administration was built in 1880 and became the city’s first administrative building.

On December 27, 1917, an initiative Bolshevik group formed the Akmola City Council of Deputies. On March 2, 1918, at the first Council of Workers, Soldiers, and Muslim Deputies, it was decided to establish Soviet power in the district. At the end of the Council, its participants cut down a pillar with a double-headed eagle (a symbol of the overthrown Russian Empire), installed in front of the building.

In 1919, the building housed the headquarters of the 59th Infantry Division. Then, the city and regional libraries were located here. Since the late 1970s, the building has belonged to the State Academic Russian Drama Theater named after Maxim Gorky.

Gymnasium (currently – State Academic Russian Drama Theater named after M. Gorky)

(13 Zheltoksan St.)

Date of construction: late 19th century

The building was originally built as a gymnasium at the end of the 19th century. In 1899, merchant Kubrin and the Akmolinsk City Administration bought the building for 100 roubles and turned it into the theater. On September 10, 1955, the Ministry of Culture of the Kazakh SSR issued an order to open the Akmola Regional Drama Theater. Eugene Oryol was elected the main director. In 1959 the theater was named after Maxim Gorky.

Cathedral of St. Constantine and Elena

(12B Republic Ave.)

Date of construction: 1900

The only church of pre-revolutionary Akmolinsk that has survived to this day was built in 1856. It’s located between today's Munaitpasov Stadium and the Astana Concert Hall. At the beginning of the 20th century, along modern-day Republic Avenue, a Cossack village was created. In May 1900, the church was moved there. In the 1930s, the church was closed because religion was ridiculed and religious property was confiscated by the order of the Communist Party. Then, the building was used by military battalions. In 1942, by the requests of the residents, the church opened its doors to parishioners again.

Old Weather Station

(11 Jambul St.)

Date of construction: 1916

Old Weather Station is an architectural monument of the early 20th century, included in the list of monuments of great historical and cultural importance. The city’s first weather station was opened by Konstantin Lazarev on November 1, 1870.

In 1873, the Main Physical Observatory sent him a set of instruments for conducting meteorological observations and instructions of Swiss meteorologist Heinrich von Wild. After the departure of Konstantin Lazarev, the meteorological station worked until 1885. Then, it was moved several times and in 1916 the station moved into the current one-story brick building built by the Yekaterinburg Observatory on behalf of the Nikolaev Main Physical Observatory. The building is still used for its original purpose.