Ministry of Defense building (Ukraine)

Ministry of Defence building is a government building in Kiev that quarters the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. The building better known as the Kiev Vladimir Cadet Corps was built on the project of Russian architect Ivan Shtrom.

In 1847 the nobility from number of Southwestern (Ukrainian) Russian guberniyas (Kiev, Volyn, Podolie, Kherson and Tavrida) collected 200,000 rubles on construction of the school building for children of nobles from the mentioned guberniyas. The nobles also agreed to pay annually 67,000 silver rubles to the school for education. And it was petitioned to name the school after the newly born Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia. The Russian emperor Nicholas I of Russia satisfied all those petitions and the very same year visited Kiev to pick a spot for the new school, while in the mean time it was agreed to temporarily conduct all classes in the First Kiev Gymnasium (today the "Yellow Building" of Kiev University). The construction was entrusted to the Russian architect Ivan Shtrom and stretched for some 10 years. The building was finally completed on August 30, 1857. It housed some 400 students.

The school was changing hands during the Bolshevik hostilities in Ukraine in 1917-20 as part of the so-called Russian Civil War and normal education was interrupted. From June 1920 and before the World War II the building was housing the 5th Kiev Infantry School. During the occupation of Kiev by the Nazi Germany, the building served as army barracks for the German Wehrmacht. On November 5, 1943 the Soviet air strike destroyed half of the building and it was rebuilt in 1951-53. Since that time here was located the headquarters of the Kiev Military District.

Since 1991 the building houses the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.

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