City Olga Kobylyanska Street

Every more or less significant city has its Street. Even if the street is sometimes nothing but a tourist attraction -- it doesn't matter. Just as in Yalta all visitors hurry to see the quay; in Kyiv, Khteshchatyk Street; in Odessa, Derybasivska; and in Uzhgorod they simply have to take a walk along Korzo. In Chernivtsi they try not to miss Kobylyanska Street, formerly Panska (Herrengasse).

It falls as a ray from the Central Plaza, past the merry musicians at the Civil Registry Office to linger a little next to the Cathedral, and then rushes on to the German House. Just like the majority of such streets, it is not too long (600 m) and it's a pedestrian area. And of course, a visitor cannot only take a walk, but also have a meal or buy a souvenir.
There still live those citizens of Chernivtsi who remember Panska Street being washed with soap several times a day, and the merchants bringing goods from the suburban districts of Rosha or Monastyrska who had to wipe their feet before stepping on the cobblestones of the street. Dirty carts that came into the city from the country were not allowed to enter the Chernivtsi VIP block.

Down the street on the left, a building with a gracious tower comes into the view. This used to be the coffee house of "Gabsburg", and now it's a department of the National Bank of Ukraine.

All the buildings here are unique in their architecture. Among them are No. 36 – the Polish National House with its modernized Renaissance attic (architect, F. Skovron, 1905), as well as No. 53, the German National House (architect, Gustav Frich, 1908), where Medieval motifs are re-interpreted in the manner of neo-romanticism and "yugenstyle", the style of traditional national architecture. Wall-paintings in the interior were made by Alfred Offner. Now the corresponding Polish and Austrian-German cultural communities are located in these buildings.

Building No. 29 (1878), which is now the Civil Registry Office, was constructed with the observance of neo-renaissance style forms.