As part of Ukraine’s efforts to decommunize the country, in Lviv a few streets are being renamed and a number of memorial plaques and other objects that have Soviet symbols are being dismantled, including Soviet-era flag holders. Here’s a small collection of the hammer and sickle and star flag holders […]

I suppose it was common for buildings in Lviv’s center and wealthier neighborhoods to have the architectural infrastructure for servants who lived with the families. These now largely antiquated architectural elements would have included a servant staircase, sleeping quarters, and a separate wash area. Fortunately, the planning of my apartment […]

Last night someone stole the antique metal mail slot from my front door and the front door of my neighbor’s apartment. Mine was old but without an inscription, while my neighbor’s had the Polish inscription “Listy” (letters). To see the empty spaces on our doors this morning was quite depressing, […]

On Lviv’s ghost signs from the book “The House with a Stained Glass Window” (by Żanna Słoniowska, 2015), which takes place in the early 1990s: I had always tried my best to read the city like a great book, but it turned out he was the one who knew its […]

A new burger joint opened up in an Austrian-era building near Lviv’s Rynok Square. It was built as a revenue house by Ukrainian sculptor and architect Mykhailo Makovych in 1912. The following year it also housed a small traders association. Fortunately, when the owners of the new establishment renovated the […]

Mikolasch Passage was a glass-covered shopping arcade, which housed two cinemas, restaurants, cafes, and shops. The passage was built between 1898 and 1900. One entrance was from Kopernyka Street, through the entrance of Piotr Mikolasch’s famous pharmacy. (In 1853 in Piotr Mikolasch’s pharmacy, Jogann Zeh and Ignacy Lukasiewicz invented the […]

It’s farily common to find the dates of buildings carved into their facades, but occasionally the years of constructions were marked in other places, for example on the floor near the main entrance, such as can be seen in my posts about terrazzo or on tiles as seen below. This one […]

Inside of Les Kurbas Theater in Lviv is a ghost sign in French. The building was built in 1909 and originally functioned as a variety theater. The sign dates from the first era (1909-1918), or possibly from the interwar period since I see “Polonia” written there (though seems that during […]

A ghost sign on a former bookstore called Nowości, which existed in the interwar period. Today the space houses a small store selling art and office supplies, among other things. Here’s a listing of the bookstore in a directory from 1939:

Riunione Adratica was an Italian insurance company specializing in fire insurance and cargo-transport insurance. The company was founded in 1838 in Trieste, which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. “Almost immediately branch agencies or representative offices were opened in Athens; Budapest; Graz, Austria; Leghorn, Lugano, and Milan, Italy; Berlin; […]