哈尔科夫马戏团5 张照片

#### Chinese #### Harbin Circus

As early as the 18th century, the first street circus performances took place in Kharkiv.
In the early 19th century, there were already 6 circus troupes in the city, performing on markets such as Rybnaya Square, Mikhailovskaya Square (now Rudneva Square) and Mironositskaya Square (now Victory Square) from spring to autumn.


In 1862, the first permanent wooden circus building was constructed in Kharkiv on Moskovskaya Street. It belonged to Wilhelm Sura, a German citizen of Prussia. Five years later, the wooden structure was encased in a brick wall, covered with canvas, and equipped with basic heating systems. In 1868, another wooden circus tent was set up near Sura’s circus. Its owner, Joseph Dersen, was the director of the Moscow Circus.
In 1870, Johann Fritz, a Romanian citizen, built a new wooden circus near Nikolaevskaya Square. In 1881, French entrepreneurs L. and J. Godfroy built a temporary wooden circus building on Torgovaya Square (now Rosa Luxembourg Square) that was authorized to operate there for 5 years; after that period, it was demolished at the governor’s orders.

In 1882, the Italian Ernest Cinizelli constructed a massive wooden circus in Mikhailovskaya Square. In the same year, another wooden circus building was built in the Zhandarmskaya Square area (now Militioner Square) by the famous Nikitin brothers, who founded Russia’s first permanent circus.

On the other side of Zhandarmskaya Square, the entrepreneur Heinrich Grikke first built a wooden circus, and then, in 1905–1906, under the design of V. V. Krustalyov, M. S. Komornitsky and B. N. Korneenko, he constructed the city’s first permanent stone circus. This theater-style venue was equipped with advanced technologies of the time, such as electric lighting and central heating, and could also be converted into a theater when necessary. The history of Heinrich Grikke’s “Old Circus” is closely linked to many famous figures and events in Ukrainian theater history. Many renowned actors and troupes, including those led by M. L. Kropivnitsky, P. K. Saksagansky, and M. K. Sadovsky, performed there. In 1912–1913, the “Public Theater” founded by N. N. Sinelnikov also operated here.

In 1911, the theater entrepreneur Grigory Mikhailovich Mussouri built a new large-scale circus theater building on the corner of Blagoveshchenenskaya Street (now Karl Marx Street) and Dmitrievskaya Street. This facility, capable of seating 5,750 people, was the largest circus in the world at that time. It included dressing rooms, various workshops, and auxiliary facilities. At that moment, Kharkiv thus had two operating permanent circuses simultaneously, an achievement that few large cities even today possess. Although this circus building did not operate for a long time.

Source: vk.com/old_kharkov