Building of the Institute of Social and Forensic Psychiatry and Narcology

On the border of Kirillovskaya Grove and Babi Yar a dense “wall” of tall trees hides another abandoned object in Kyiv – the unfinished building of the Institute of Social and Forensic Psychiatry and Narcology. The unfinished building has no history as such, so we can only make do with assumptions. In all likelihood, the construction of an additional building for the Kyiv City Clinical Psychoneurological Hospital No. 1 began in the mid-to-late 1980s and stopped, like most construction projects throughout the USSR, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. There have been no attempts to complete or repurpose the building for something else, and it is now in disrepair. Fans gather here to play paintball and bungee jump from the roof.

Not far away, if you go towards telecentre, there is one of the best surviving burials of the old Jewish cemetery – the Kachkovsky crypt. Pyotr Erazmovich Kachkovsky, a prominent Kiev surgeon, was an associate professor at the University of St. Vladimir (now Taras Shevchenko University). In 1908, at 33 Olesya Gonchar Street, he opened his own surgical clinic in a new, custom-built building that to this day amazes with its beauty. But in April 1909, the famous doctor died suddenly. According to the will, the clinic passed into the possession of his colleague I. Makovsky, and under his name it began its full-fledged work in 1910.

In the fall of 1911, Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin arrived in Kyiv. In the building of the Kyiv City Theater (now National Opera of Ukraine) during the second intermission they tried to kill him and seriously wounded him, in connection, for which he was taken to the Makovsky clinic, where the best medical specialists gathered. However, it was not possible to save the prime minister – a few days later, he died. To alleviate the suffering of the official, hay was laid on the road passing near the clinic – this way the carts passing by would not disturb with their noise. In memory of this tragedy, the street was renamed Stolypinskaya, and the Kovalevsky-Makovsky clinic was called “Stolypinsky House” by local residents. After the Great Patriotic War in 1948, reconstruction was carried out here and the building was restored. During Soviet times, there was an ophthalmology clinic here, as well as some other medical institutions. Since 1998, the headquarters of the People’s Movement of Ukraine party has been located here, and now there is a Museum of the Sixties.

In 1912, a crypt was built at the grave of Pyotr Kachkovsky, in which his brother, the early deceased student Anton Kachkovsky, was also buried. At the entrance to the crypt there is an inscription: “Tomb of the Kachkovskys.” The crypt consists of 2 deep (more than 2 meters) underground chambers and one above-ground room. On the back of the crypt it is written about two buried: doctor of medicine Pyotr Erazmovich Kachkovsky and law student Anton Erazmovich Kachkovsky. The crypt and underground chambers were vandalized in the mid-to-late 1980s almost beyond recognition.

Where is the building of the Institute of Social and Forensic Psychiatry and Narcology located?