The former Regional Tax Office in Yakutsk, designed by Klemens Leszewicz

Its designer was Klemens Leszewicz (1948‒1921?), a Polish engineer and architect educated in St Petersburg. Between 1907 and 1913, he served as the regional architect in Yakutsk. He designed several buildings here, including the former headquarters of the Regional Tax Office, which now houses an art museum. Excluding Orthodox churches, this was the first brick, multi-storey public building in the city. To this day, it remains the city’s architectural landmark.

Poles in Yakutia

The exceptionally harsh climatic conditions and its remoteness from the European part of Russia meant that Yakutia became one of the harshest places of exile and forced settlement. Poles were sent to north-eastern Siberia as early as the 17th century, both as members of the Cossack units colonising these lands and as prisoners of war from the Polish–Muscovite wars. In the 19th century, failed independence uprisings resulted in further waves of Polish exiles. A particularly large number of Poles found themselves in Yakutia following the January Uprising. It should be noted that there were also Poles who settled there voluntarily, including tsarist officials, engineers and even gold mine owners. The most famous Polish exiles, who made a contribution to the scientific study of Yakutia that is still valued today, were: the linguist Edward Piekarski (1858‒1934); the ethnographer Wacław Sieroszewski (1858–1945); and the geologists Aleksander Czekanowski (1833–1876) and Jan Czerski (1845–1892). A monument dedicated to them, in the form of a group of boulders, stands near the Salesian house in Yakutsk. It was unveiled on 9 September 2001, but by September 2023 it had disappeared from the urban landscape.

Klemens Leszewicz – engineer, architect, innovator

The architect who ‘changed the face of Yakutsk’ was Klemens (Klementij) Leszewicz. He was born on 23 November 1848 in the Drissky district of the Vitebsk Governorate, into a family of noble descent, to Adam Leszewicz and Izabella (née Dobrowolska). He was educated in St Petersburg, where he completed his classical secondary education. He continued his studies at the School of Civil Engineering attached to the Ministry of the Interior (1867–1872). He then combined work as an architect’s assistant with studies at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts as an auditor. Upon graduating in 1874, he was promoted to the rank of architectural engineer, with the title of titular councillor. In St Petersburg, he ran a technical and construction consultancy. He specialised in heating and ventilation systems.

In the 1890s, he served as provincial architect in, successively: Akmolinsk (now Astana, Kazakhstan), Vyatka (now Kirov), and, from January 1902, on Sakhalin. In January 1907, at the request of Governor Ivan Kraft, Leszewicz was transferred to Yakutsk, where he was appointed regional architect. He worked there until August 1913, when, at his own request and due to deteriorating health, he returned to St Petersburg. He did not take up any further employment. He died, probably in 1921, in unexplained circumstances.

Former headquarters of the Regional Tax Office

Leszewicz’s first commission was to design a multi-storey stone building to serve as the new headquarters of the Regional Tax Chamber, located on Prawlenska Street (now 4 Petrovskogo Street). The foundation stone was laid on 6 May 1909. The architect’s son, Klemens Leszewicz Jr, was appointed site manager.

The design included a basement, which at the time posed a major technical challenge due to the permafrost. A stone foundation beam was used, laid at a relatively deep depth (approx. 2 m), along with thermal insulation in the form of timber logs bonded with lime mortar. Local building materials were used. The building was erected on a rectangular plan with a recess in the left-hand façade (side entrance). Construction took two years, until 30 May 1911, when the building was completed and solemnly consecrated.

Leszewicz employed not only unique structural and technological solutions, but also an original architectural form – albeit one that was widespread in the early 20th century – yet previously unseen in this region. The composition of the façades drew on motifs characteristic of 17th-century Russian architecture, offering a free interpretation of these through the use of numerous ornaments and details. The rich decoration comprised three pairs of semi-circular windows (a type of biforium), a richly moulded frieze, and a portal and gable in the form of a kokoshnik. The turrets flanking the portal are crowned with four-sided onion domes. The building, designed in the Neo-Russian style, blended harmoniously with the neighbouring timber buildings. It represents the northern variant of Russian eclecticism, of which the Polish architect Klemens Leszewicz proved to be one of the most important exponents.

Functions of the building in Yakutsk

Built as the headquarters of the Regional Tax Office, over the course of its more than 100-year history, the building has housed, amongst other things, a White Guard defence post (during the Civil War), a state bank, the headquarters of the People’s Commissariat for Finance, and a radio station. In 1970, it became the home of the Museum of 16th–19th-Century Western European Art, opened by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Yakut Autonomous SSR following a donation by the family of Professor Mikhail Gabyshev — comprising some 250 works by Western artists. In 1995, following a lengthy and extensive refurbishment, the reopened museum was renamed the M. F. Gabyshev Gallery of Foreign Art – a branch of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Between 2005 and 2007, another thorough renovation – or rather, a reconstruction – was carried out. This time, the building was erected on stilts, with the basements removed. After the work was completed, it continued to serve as a museum. The permanent exhibition currently features paintings, prints, sculptures and industrial design from Italy, France and the Netherlands, as well as art from Asian countries: China, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia.

Other projects by Klemens Leszewicz in Yakutsk

Klemens Leszewicz also designed and built other buildings in Yakutsk featuring original architecture, including: the City Public Library and the Regional Museum (now the National Library of the Republic of Sakha, Yakutia), the District Court (now the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha, Yakutia), the Archpriest’s House (now the E. M. Yaroslavsky Yakut State Museum of the History and Culture of the Peoples of the North), and the headquarters of the Yakutsk branch of the Russian-Asian Bank (now the Almazergiznbank office).

The arrival of the Polish architect marked the beginning of a new era in the history of Yakutsk’s architecture. He made a name for himself not only as an architect and artist, but also as an innovative engineer. His task was by no means easy, as he had to contend with the harsh natural environment and build on unstable ground that shifted with the changing seasons. Under such conditions, he developed and implemented specialised technologies, including those relating to the protection of permafrost and steam heating. He is still highly regarded today. The buildings he designed have been entered in the register of historical and cultural monuments of the Yakut ASSR. They have also recently been included in the unified register of cultural heritage sites of the peoples of the Russian Federation.

In August 2018, to mark the 170th anniversary of the architect’s birth, a conference on ‘The History of Poles in Yakutsk’ was organised in the capital of Sakha; a large part of it was devoted to Klemens Leszewicz and his architectural legacy.