The Kozel-Poklewskis created an important industrial centre in the Urals in Talitsa. It was also a Polish enclave and a place of rescue for exiles. With the Bolshevik Revolution, almost everything disappeared, like... Atlantis. And although a century has passed as this world is gone, the tourist will still find in Talitsa traces of its former glory.

Siberian Talitsa - a walk through the city's history
The centre of the 16,000-strong town of Talitsa is filled with four-storey blocks of flats, the so-called Khrushchevs, and wooden houses, among which there are several that date back to before the Bolshevik Revolution. These monuments of bourgeois Siberian culture are characterised by their rich ornamentation and evoke associations with Russian fairy tales. However, you only have to walk a few blocks to find yourself surrounded by contemporary wooden buildings. It is an immortal suburb that looks the same as long and wide as Siberia. One-storey houses with courtyards surrounded by a high fence and a characteristic gate. Between the street and the houses - piles of firewood and rusting specimens of Soviet automobiles. Against such an architectural and cultural background, the large red-brick building appears like a castle from a completely different fairy tale.

The Kozel-Poklewskis' residence in Siberia
. And indeed, this edifice could have been found anywhere. Its founder, Wincenty Kozel-Poklewski, was one of the richest men in Siberia and could afford to build a house anywhere. The choice, however, fell on Talitsa. This town at the end of the 19th century was less populous than today, but more industrialised and much less provincial. The building itself was erected in 1895 and, according to legend, had 80 rooms. This number, perhaps only slightly inflated, reflects the momentum of the construction, which is not seen when looking from the front.

The block, shaped like an office staple or, one might say, an angular capital letter C, is turned towards today's Lenin Street with its shorter northern side. On the axis of the façade is a three-sided risalit, or projection, going the full height and topped with a pseudo-tower. It houses the main entrance and a small balcony on the first floor. The ornamentation of the façade, especially the window arches, is reminiscent of ornamentation characteristic of Neo-Gothic, although this is not the only stylistic reference.

Polish nobleman's mansion in Siberia
. The building is by all means eclectic, and its grandeur also brings to mind analogies with neo-classical solutions favoured by tsarist officials. On the other hand, there is something of a hunting lodge in the Talitsk 'castle', as the locals call it, the remains of which can be seen, for example, in Bialowieza. Such an association is also confirmed by the biography of the founder, famous for his hunting passions. Witnesses also confirm that several rooms were filled with animal trophies, while one room was used as an armoury.

It didn't stop there, as a long, richly decorated wooden veranda was added to the south façade at first-floor level, the only traces of which today are the beam spaces in the wall. The lost openwork structure added to the building's sanatorium-like atmosphere, which is not an unreasonable reference, as Talica is located in an area with spa qualities. It is also known that the building had hot and cold water and electricity. The layout of the dozens of rooms was amphiladic, and therefore typical of Polish manor houses of the nobility, and only a few rooms, including Wincenty Koziełł-Poklewski's study, were unobstructed.

Today, the Koziełł-Poklewski manor house in Talice houses an educational facility for children, where, among other things, 'forest school' classes on ecology are held. Meanwhile, there is a memorial plaque on the building, decorated with photographs of Alfons Koziełł-Poklewski with his wife Aniela née Rymsza (top) and their son Wincenty Koziełł-Poklewski (bottom), with text in the centre: This house was owned by the Koziełł-Poklewskis from 1895 to 1919. The history of Talitsa, the Talitsa region and the entire Urals is linked to them. The successful economic development of the region is inextricably linked to their activities. Their philanthropic activities left a large imprint in the development of Talitsa's culture, education and health care.

Alfons Koziełł-Poklewski - creator of the family fortune
. From Talitsa, Wincenty Koziełł-Poklewski managed distilleries, breweries, sugar factories, steelworks, mines and a fleet of steamships. Representatives of the family owned properties in the largest Siberian cities and palaces in St Petersburg and eastern Belarus, where their ancestors had lived. On the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, this entire estate was estimated at over thirty million roubles.

The Kozel-Poklewskis owed their wealth to their work, although a gifted entrepreneur like Vincent did not start from scratch. He inherited his first million from his father, an extraordinary figure. Alfons Koziełł-Poklewski, who was behind the family fortune, arrived in St Petersburg shortly after studying in Vilnius. It was 1831, the November Uprising was underway and the Pole faced ostracism. Proud to leave the capital and head south-east to Astrakhan, where he quickly began to climb the career ladder. As a promising civil servant, he returned to the Neva, but was not destined to remain there. At a social gathering, he was insulted by a high-ranking person and in anger threw the impertinent out of the window. The incident reverberated and the 27-year-old Kozel-Poklewski left as far away as possible, precisely for Siberia.

Alfons Koziełł-Poklewski - lord on Siberian estates
. He knew that in Russia power and wealth go hand in hand, so he hired himself out to the governor of Western Siberia. While fulfilling government orders, he also started to develop his own business. He leased a steamboat and was the first to transport raw materials on Siberian rivers without the support of burlaks. In the second half of the 1860s came the distilleries, which he first leased and later bought out. He strove for independence and in the following decade was already producing bottles in his own smelters, transporting spirits by his own transport, storing raw materials in granaries owned by him and setting up kabaks, i.e. shops and bars in one. He also waged trade wars and sold cheap vodka for the proverbial kopecks a glass. It was not only his competitors who fell victim to such practices, but also the peasants, for whom dumping was an opportunity for days of libations. This was described by the well-known writer Dmitry Mamin-Sibiriak, who made the Pole the hero of his books.

The predatory Siberian capitalist is just one face of Alfons Kozel-Poklewski. He was also a breadwinner for 10,000 people and built settlements, schools, hospitals and temples with them in mind. He settled in Talitsa and invested huge resources in the community of this town. Powerful and almost self-powerful, he used bribes to get his compatriots out of places where they were sent to hard labour and employed them in his factories. The procedure was not legal, but hundreds of Poles owed him the shortening of their sentence, and often their lives.

Talitsa - the promised land
Today, there is much evidence of the Kozł-Poklewskis' presence in Siberia, and in Talitsa itself we will still hear stories connected with this family, and two will relate to treasures found in their house. Outside the town, however, there are no more traces of this empire.

Only in Talitsa will we come across other buildings in which an element - an annex, a shed - was made of the same brick as the "castle", and we will also be able to visit the building of a former distillery owned by Poles. Local historians have preserved artefacts marked with the coat of arms of Koziello. Thus, a crescent with arrows could be seen on liquor labels, flour wrappers and even bricks, and no doubt tradition lovers will be happy to show us these items. Moreover, if you arrive by train, you will be greeted by the shadow of Alphonse himself, for it was thanks to him that the railway line was brought here, and the station, located 3 km from the centre of Talitsa, was still called Poklevská until the 1960s.