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The
Building of Regimental Chancellery
 It
was built in 1690s
on the territory of Dytynets (Citadel) not far from the castle ditch.
Originally it belonged to Chernihiv colonel Yakiv Lyzohub, but after
his death in 1698 – to hetman Ivan Mazepa. In the 18th
century there was situated Regimental Chancellery of Chernihiv
Cossack Regiment, and from the end of the 18th
century till the beginning of the 20th it was the archive, nowadays
the funds of Chernihiv historical museum by V.Tarnovs’kiy are
located there.
The house is one-storey, six-compartment, the type of ‘hut of
two parts’, on such a cellar. Two-compartment (street and back)
entrance hall divides the House into two
parts: west – that is for men and east – for women, each having
two rooms. The building has a gable roof with monumental triangular
frontons on the side walls.
The
size of the house according to the plan is 21х16
m. All the rooms are overlapped by the system of cylinder vaults with
strippings (the vaults in two western rooms are lost).
The street entrance into the house is on the north-east, where in
the 17th century there was a city square, and back
entrance is on the south-west from the
yard.
The house is unique in every respect. The characteristic feature
of Chernihiv buildings of the 17-18th
centuries is actualized in the expressive composition and ornamental
processing of the facades: plastic processing of the facades, where
the flat pilasters are arranged in the corners and at the
intersections of walls, patterned frontons, versatile cornices
and other elements create a unique play of light and shade.
Plastic qualities of brick of different shape and size, the
methods of planning that had originated from folk architecture are
used with a great skill here.
It is necessary to note, that this is the only monument of civil
architecture of Ukraine of the end of the 17th
century that has remained in a good condition and has an exclusively
rich design of facades. As a characteristic feature of Ukrainian
architecture of that period was lots of facades of the house, the
northern facade as the main is decorated richer than others. The
ornamental processing of facades is arranged by a principle of
increasing of the plastic and elements from the eastern through
southern and western facades to the northern – the main facade. The
elements of eastern and western facades - triangular canopies with
versatile elements above the windows intertwine on the southern
facade.
The
most magnificent plastic of the decor is on the northern part of the
facade – there are the most magnificent canopies of multi-leaf
rosette, and below there is the socle of the house in the form of
ornament–meander that is turned round by a versatile reveal lining
of the windows of the cellar. The western facade is divided by a
pilaster into two parts that correspond to the inside arrangement of
the walls. The wall is brightened up only by niches, that are
decorated by “big-eared” architraves. So all four facades are
designed in the
same degree of expressiveness: strong relief of the décor
that is emphasized by the
treatment of light and shade amazes by its picturesqueness and
monumentalism.
The building is made of bricks on lime mortar, the outside
and inside walls are plastered and whitewashed. The roof is gabled
and covered with roof steel along the wooden rafters.
The Building of Regimental Chancellery suffered damages during the
fires in 1718 and 1750. In the latter half of the 18th century the
tambour, decorated with figured frontons, was added to the northern
façade and one more small tambour was arranged as the
entrance to the cellar from the yard. In one of the vaults the hatch
to the attic was cut through. In the 19th century the ovens were
destroyed, new windows were cut through in the eastern and western
facades, the covering of a roof was changed for a tin covering. The
house was restored in 1954 and 1969.
The Building of Regimental Chancellery is the most spectacular
civil building of the 17th century in
Left-bank Ukraine. It is the part of National
architectural-historical Park “Ancient Chernihiv”. | 
