House with a Star on Khreshchatyk: A Photo Story

The House with a Star, also known as the Druzhba ("Friendship") building, stands at Khreshchatyk 25 in the very heart of Kyiv and impresses with its grandeur and beauty. It rightly occupies one of the most central and scenic spots in the capital.

The building was completed in 1954. Its design did not take its familiar form right away: under one of the early versions of the postwar plan to rebuild Khreshchatyk, Kyiv's main street, a squat, domed House of People's Assemblies might have stood where the high-rise with the star is now.

In the end, however, the honor of designing Khreshchatyk's centerpiece went to architects Dobrovolskyi, Malynovskyi and Petrushenko. Their 85-meter high-rise is a building everyone who has visited Kyiv will recognize.

The House with a Star (Druzhba) is a three-section, 15-story brick apartment building built on a structural frame. The tall residential block is crowned by a tower with a spire topped by a star and flanked by two 9-story wings. Two 11-story apartment buildings adjoin the high-rise as part of a single complex. Together with the other buildings on Khreshchatyk, it forms a handsome, harmonious architectural ensemble.

The ground floor housed the small, cozy Druzhba cinema, which opened a little later, on February 16, 1956.