Shadows of a Forgotten World

The first water supply system in Lviv was built in 1407. The ​​German Peter Schtecher was responsible for drafting the plans for the construction of cisterns and water pipes. As information about the work associated with the laying of water pipes was strictly classified, no documents with the precise locations of the early water supply facilities have been found. The first cisterns are likely to have been located on the Lychakiv hills, east of Lviv. The Pohulyanka cistern is located on a steep hillside in Pohulyanka Park . The cistern collected water from nearby springs and piped the water to the city. The type of vault and the use of broken stone instead of crafted stone blocks are signs that the cistern itself dates back to 1407. In 1839 the current façade was built and the interior vaults were renovated .  The two massive buttresses are decorated with reliefs of sea nymphs ( Nereids ) holding gifts of the sea: shell s and branches of coral. The author of the

My friend found an antique roller shutter in Zhovkva, an old fortress town near Lviv. As the manufacturer's mark is in German, and the company was based in Vienna, the shutter probably dates to before WWI. Photos taken by Charitie Hyman

The companies that installed plumbing and sewers in Lviv attached plates on houses where such services were provided. A few of these plates, which state that the water pipes were installed in this building by such and such company, can still be found in Lviv, though, as usual, some of the remaining ones have been painted or plastered over. wodociąg (Pl.) = waterworks collection of plates from Kupol restaurant

A couple of years ago my friend and I had the idea of documenting Ukraine’s Soviet-era bus stops, which remain in many villages across the country. The majority are decorated with mosaics and many have a distinct Soviet style of Socialist realism or  Soviet pop art, but others styles include Cubo-Futurism, Expressionism, and folk art. village Vovkiv, near Lviv Some of the bus stops are in really bad shape  —  mosaic tiles missing, painted over, graffiteed; but others remain in rather good shape.  I think some are quite beautiful actually; others are a bit too Soviet for me. What makes them quite special is that that each one (and there must be thousands) is unique.  from a bus stop in the Carpathians (photo by Charitie Hyman) In any case, they are very interesting relics of the Soviet era. We never did start documenting them, but it seems that others have had the same idea. I’m glad that someone else took the initiative, because with time there will be fewer and f

I’ve found only one hitching ring in Lviv so far. It is attached to the building at 16 Virmenska St. , which was built in 1792 . It looks much older than the ones I found in Lublin , so I think it’s possible that it was installed around the time the building was built, making it approximately 200 years old. For some reason, I can’t find any information about it in any books or on the Internet.

Very few square-shaped manhole covers (prewar-era) with the words “miejska elektrownia” (municipal power station) remain in Lviv. stencil says "private plumber"

A benchmark is geographic point whose elevation has been measured and recorded to a high level of accuracy. The  height of a benchmark is calculated relative to the heights of nearby benchmarks in a network extending from a fundamental benchmark ( a point which records a height to extreme accuracy . ) Benchmarks are used by such professionals as surveyors, engineers, and map makers . In 1880-1888, the Department of Geodesy of the Lviv Polytechnic created the first leveling network in Lviv consisting of 18 benchmarks. The network was used for the construction of Lviv’s first sewer. (The Galicia state leveling network was created by the Military Geographical Institute in Vienna between 1888 and 1892.) Lviv’s fundamental benchmark was installed on the wall of the main building of the Lviv Polytechnic in 1880 by famous astronomical surveyor, rector of the Lviv Polytechnic, Professor Dominik Zbrozhek. The height was determined by barometric surveying from the level of the Adri