Buildings of the Old Town Square. Buildings of the Old Town Square Each bell reflects the specifics of the place from which it was brought

There is a house with a poetic name "At the stone bell". Although it would be more correct to say a palace, because the building consists of three floors, richly decorated both inside and outside, this architectural ensemble also includes attached outbuildings and a courtyard.

House "At the stone bell" first of all, it is notable for being included in the list of the oldest buildings in Prague. Since the 13th century, it has been pleasing the townspeople with its appearance. At the beginning of the 14th century, the royal family drew attention to it, it was slightly rebuilt in accordance with their tastes and needs. After the work carried out, King Jan of Luxembourg and his wife Eliska Přemyslovna settled here. According to one version, the famous Czech king Charles IV, who ruled from 1346 to 1378, was born here. If this fact is not recognized by scientists as 100% reliable, then no one doubts that the beloved monarch lived and stayed in the house “At the Stone Bell” until 1333 - until the completion of construction.

From the 60s. In the 14th century, the building passed into the possession of the city nobles, the heirs succeeded one after another, carrying out more and more construction work, which greatly changed the original historical appearance of the house. Around the same time, the palace got its name, by which we still know it. The legend says that next to it was placed a bell that had fallen from the Tyn Church.

Over time, the house has changed beyond recognition, lost its Gothic style. So in the 19th century it was rebuilt in the pseudo-baroque style, and at the beginning of the 20th century it was completely turned into an ordinary building, which in appearance does not differ from hundreds of others, placing large offices, warehouses and workshops in it.

Everything changed in the 80s of the 20th century, when a large-scale reconstruction of the building was carried out. In the eyes of the inhabitants and guests of the city, as in ancient times, the palace appeared again - a tower in its original Gothic style. In the process of work, a valuable architectural and historical monument with windows decorated in the Gothic style was found under a layer of plaster of the western facade.

The original interior was not restored everywhere, but on each floor you can find a piece of that royal palace. On the first one there is a chapel with an entrance hall, painted with frescoes on religious themes, on the second one there is a chapel, on the second and third one there are ceremonial halls, ready to receive distinguished guests.

Now the House "At the stone bell" is run, and various exhibitions and concerts are held here.

House "At the Stone Bell" - The Stone Bell House (Dum U Kamenneho zvonu) - is located on the Old Town Square, next to the Kinsky Palace and is a three-story tower-palace with outbuildings attached to it, surrounding a rectangular courtyard.

According to the latest historical research, the House at the Stone Bell was built in the 13th century. You can still see the original part of the building in the basement and in the south wing of the house. This is one of the oldest buildings in Prague. According to legend, the house was rebuilt for the young royal couple: King John of Luxembourg and Princess Eliska Přemyslovna. The palace was used as the residence of the royal couple. In 1316, the future illustrious Emperor Charles IV (1346-1378) was born here. Until now, the exact birthplace of Charles IV is not known, but it is reliably known that he lived in this palace on his return from France and repeatedly enjoyed the hospitality of this house, until 1333. The Royal Palace at Prague Castle was not completed.

The house was first completed in 1363, when it belonged to the townsman Genslin Pesold. Previously, the residence was also located on the site of the modern house "At the Black Elephant" and partially on the site of the "Kinsky Palace".

Later, the palace was divided among the heirs of the next owner. Since then, reduced to the volume of a "corner" palace with annexes, the so-called house "At the stone bell" appeared.
In 1685, the original Gothic appearance of the building was changed during the reconstruction to the Baroque. In 1899, the house received a new pseudo-baroque façade. At the beginning of the 20th century, after the placement of offices, warehouses and workshops, the original character of the house disappeared almost completely.

It was only in the 80s that a reconstruction took place, which, to a certain extent, returns the building to the original appearance of the “tower” palace in the mature Gothic style. Under the layers of plaster of the main, western facade, a valuable Gothic monument was discovered with richly profiled and plastically worked windows with niches and consoles for sculptures.

From the original interiors, only the chapel with an entrance hall in the first floor of the south wing, covered with a ribbed cross vault, remained; its walls are covered with frescoes from the life of the legendary St. Wenceslas, images of Christ and saints.

In the front halls of the 2nd and 3rd floors, a part of the original decorative decoration remained: the entrance portal, window sills and a triple niche with a canopy. Fragments of decoration remained in some rooms of the southern wing. In this case, we are talking about the chapel on the 2nd floor.

Since 1988, the House at the Stone Bell has been assigned to the Prague City Gallery and has been used for exhibitions and concerts.

Entrance fee - 120 kroons.

House "At the Stone Bell" is open daily except Monday from 10:00 to 18:00.

On the corner of Staromestskaya, the famous square with a clock, there is a house with an amazing fate and a memorable name - "At the stone bell". This monument of architecture and history served as a haven for legendary historical figures, survived a period of oblivion and was reborn as a famous landmark and Gothic gem of Prague.

History of building a house

According to legend, this place was still in the times Princess Ludmila the first building appeared - it is believed that it was an underground chapel, where Christians who were persecuted at that time served their masses. This version can be confirmed by the discovered parts of the sculptures.

The current three-story house-palace appeared there at the beginning of the 14th century and served as an aristocratic residence. When the Czech princess Eliska Přemyslovna, aka Elisabeth of Bohemia, married Johann of Luxembourg, aka Jan the Blind, the building was rebuilt for them. Since the male line of the Přemyslids was interrupted by that time, in 1310, together with the hand of Eliška, Jan received the Bohemian crown.

During the first years of the Luxembourg government, they lived in this house, which then did not yet have its current name, although the same bell had already rung. One of the versions of John's accession to the Czech throne says that Elishka's personal chaplain gave him a signal to enter the city by ringing the bells. And the name "At the stone bell" appeared about a hundred years later, when this object was built into the wall of the building in memory of the events of the past.

Later, one queen lived in this palace, and here she is said to have given birth to her son Wenceslas, better known as Emperor Charles IV. As an adult, Karl lived here while the Old Royal Palace in Prague Castle was being rebuilt.

Later, this building was in the hands of the Prague nobles, and in the sixties of the XIV century it was divided into several parts by the heirs of the next deceased owner. The residence palace was reduced to a corner house, which is now known as the house "At the stone bell".

Building modifications

In the era of Charles IV, the late Gothic facade of the house was one of the most beautiful in Europe, and now it is the most valuable monument of Gothic architecture. Initially, the niches between the windows of the third floor were decorated with sculptures of the royal couple, figures in full dress with royal cloaks, and on the sides were images of two armed guards. The interiors were decorated under the influence of Western European court fashion.

But other styles flashed between Gothic for centuries - the architectural heritage was not always cherished, preferring to remake buildings in accordance with each new round of building fashion. For example, the Gothic facade and roof were removed, courtyard wings with a gallery were added.

The first renovations took place at the end of the 14th century, and a large-scale reconstruction took place in 1685. Then the house was remodeled in the Baroque style, which was in trend. Gothic elements were removed and removed from the building, some of them were simply crushed and reused as building material. Fortunately, baroque fans did not ruin everything: they simply threw some of the details of the Gothic decor into the basement, where restorers discovered them three centuries later.

At the turn of the 19th century, attempts were made to rebuild the house in the pseudo-Baroque style, but it ended with the fact that the original architectural details were simply covered with a false facade. Finally, in the 20th century, offices, warehouses and workshops were located here, completely destroying the original appearance. By the sixties of the last century, the building came up absolutely unremarkable and nondescript. The former royal house could no longer fall below, so a revival awaited it further.

Restoration and modern look

In 1961, a large-scale archaeological survey took place in this place, and a decade later, a large restoration began, the purpose of which was to restore the Gothic features of the house - both inside and out. It was painstaking and costly work that lasted more than ten years.

During the renovation, the plaster that had covered the western façade in layers was removed; the baroque heritage was removed. The restorers found an excellent example of mature Gothic architecture. As a result, the late Gothic appearance of the XIV model was returned to the building - in this form, "At the Stone Bell" was presented to the public in 1988. The bell, by the way, was also returned to its place, and now it is mounted in the corner of the building.

Today, the facades of the three-story palace-tower are decorated with restored plastic, and the walls of the main halls on the second and third floors are decorated with paintings. In the same halls, a triple throne niche covered with a canopy, seats under the windows and a portal have been preserved. On the second floor there is a chapel where you can see fragments of the original decoration.

On the first floor there is an exposition, which presents some details of the plastic decor, which have been partially preserved. And in the southern wing, a chapel with frescoes and a cruciform ribbed vault has survived.

"At the Stone Bell" is today used by the Prague City Gallery for exhibitions and concerts. Be sure to look there when you are on the Old Town Square - this is one of the most remarkable buildings on the map of Prague.

Each bell reflects the specifics of the place where it was brought from.

Lydia Grigorievna lives in Arkhangelsk, a collector of bells, including those from Solovki: "At first, bells from different places of the Arkhangelsk region (Malyye Korel, Solovki, Severodvinsk, Kotlas, etc.) replenished the collection. Then they were joined by bells from Russian cities and Ukraine: Yaroslavl, Vologda, Veliky Novgorod, Pskov, Kursk, Volgograd, Sochi, Odessa ... So the former governor of the region Anatoly Efremov, having learned about the hobby, gave her a cat, albeit not in the form of a bell, but also with a ringing. ( Tatyana Gudkova. Kitty from Efremov. "AiF in Arkhangelsk", Arkhangelsk, www.aif.ru. 04/23/2009)

The oldest bell of the Solovetsky Monastery was cast in 1545 and received the name "Blessed Plakun". In 1560, for the Transfiguration Cathedral, Tsar Ivan IV granted the monastery two small ringing bells for 25 pounds and 720 rubles specially for casting new bells.

Ancient bell of Solovki

New Solovetsky bells. Photo by Vladimir Shraga.

The monastery soon acquired three bells cast in Pskov by craftsmen for Princes A. I. Vorotynsky. One bell, called "Reverend", weighed 173 "/ 2 pounds and was cast in July 1557 by "masters of the Pskov Zapskov end Matvey Grigoriev son and Kuzma Mikhailov son." These craftsmen made in 1559 the second bell weighing 30 pounds. The third bell weighing 80 poods 14 pounds was cast in 1547 by master Trofim Oskarev Pskovitin.

Cast in Pskov in 1587 by Ivan Matveev, the son of Pskovitin, the 150-pood bell was presented to the monastery by the boyar D.I. Godunov.

stone bell

Among the oldest bells collected in Solovki, it is worth remembering a very old small stone bell with an iron riveter - it was mentioned in the first monastery inventory of 1514.

Bell "Zaes"

Master Vasily Osipov (1719) cast in the monastery itself an 80-pood bell, called "Zaes" (hare).

Bell "Borisovich"

The collection was replenished with a donated bell made by Novgorod casters (1597) and a 995 pood bell cast by Elder Sergius in 1600 in the Solovetsky Monastery itself. It was called "Borisovich", as the bell was cast using 500 pounds of copper and 100 pounds of tin, sent by Tsar Boris Godunov specifically for bell casting. In 1762, the old "Borisovich" was poured into a new bell weighing 1000 pounds, called "Preobrazhensky", which in 12 years broke and was again poured by master Evdokimov. Copper was added to the alloy and the new bell began to weigh 17.6 tons. The last time the same bell, the largest of all the Solovetsky bells, was recast in 1888 and began to weigh 1147 pounds.

Petersburg bell maker Pyotr Evdokimov worked in the 1770s. in the Solovetsky Monastery. In addition to the "Preobrazhensky" bell, he cast three more. All these bells were installed on the new monastery belfry.

Another of the preserved bells is decorated with eight relief images of crowned persons, a priest, commoners and a delicate ornament with heraldic elements arranged in pairs. There is a circular Gothic inscription along the crown of the bell. It is mentioned in the monastery inventory of 1676 as "an old bell of German casting".

The monastery inventory of 1676 mentions "a fighting clock with a handguard, and they have four small handguard bells." At the end of the 19th century, there were seven bells on the clock tower of the Refectory.

(On this page we retell the events and facts,
published in Prof. G. Boguslavsky "Solovki Islands").

Solovetsky Monastery in the Light of Strict Formal Definitions

Stauropegia: the status assigned to Orthodox monasteries, laurels, brotherhoods and cathedrals, making them directly subordinate to the patriarch.
Solovetsky Stauropegial Monastery:"Stavropegic monasteries are under the commanding supervision and canonical administration of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' or those Synodal institutions to which the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' blesses such supervision and administration." (From the Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church)
The first after the restoration of the patriarchate in Russia: Patriarch Tikhon; St. Tikhon of Moscow (in the world Vasily Ivanovich Bellavin; 1865-1925) - Bishop of the Orthodox Russian Church; November 21 (December 4), 1917 Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. Canonized by the Russian Church as a saint by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church (October 9, 1989).

The scandal around the Solovetsky bells

"...I saw a tourist advertisement, very far from both the educational and the spiritual level...

That advertisement you mentioned is a well-known distortion of famous people. I know what it's about. This is "Bells and Naked Women", printed in the late 80's. I myself cut the platform for these bells somewhere before the year 82. I was working at the museum at the time and did this exposition of bells, so this is a very old picture, and it is used very actively today. What purpose they pursue, I do not know. But we have already met with this fact more than once and had to explain to everyone who asked questions that this was black PR. Involving this kind of material seems to me very harsh, incorrect and obscene. There was nothing like this at Solovki (and I have been working as a director here since 2000, August 12 will be 5 years old) and never will be. It was the very beginning of unregulated tourism, when there was no one here, there was dirt, chaos, disorganization, and everyone was weak. Whoever wanted what he did did, used the Solovki. Mikhail Lopatkin. Relations between the two institutions - the museum and the Church - are always difficult. Interv. Maria Sveshnikova. Strana.Ru. Moscow, 08/09/2005)

They rang the bell... but thick fog
and the wind shattered all hopes.

“The next day, I already went out with my things to the pier. It turned out that, by special order, an audit commission of five or six people arrived from the Kremlin at night, headed by engineer Kutov (10 years of hard labor). They brought a lot of hospital cargo for Anzer - blankets, underwear, medicine "They equipped two boats. And the commission set off at eleven o'clock in the morning to the other side. They did not take me. Yes, I did not insist. The boats went quickly. The Pomors rowed merrily - these are all people with a particularly horse category. The day was gray, gloomy. Clouds hung. There was no sun. Suddenly a storm arose. The strait was long. Fortunately, the wind was from west to east, and the sea ice drove along the strait from Rebolda to the right. I went home to Dekhtyarev, taking my things.

The crossing usually takes an hour and a half or two. But then there was misfortune. The boats began to rub into "self" - blocks of sea ice. It became extremely cold, because it is January. They didn’t take the usual “warmers” - they didn’t take lamps, just as they didn’t take an identification pole with a flag: they didn’t expect trouble. The boats were jammed - they could no longer be steered. With the darkness that quickly set in, the rulers lost their definition of the area. It is difficult to imagine a bad darkness with clouds. People were dying. The boats stood on their own, but the ice, of course, moved. From four o'clock in the afternoon until eight o'clock in the morning nothing was visible. The rowers didn't know where they were. Food, of course, was not taken. The boat with the cargo was abandoned and then it was not found - the cargo disappeared, sank. The senior guard got it because he did not put a pole with a flag on the abandoned boat, by which it was possible to find it from afar. The elder was taken to court. I do not know the outcome of this trial. They suffered, the travelers in the boat suffered during the night. The suffering was terrible: no food, no water, no warmth. In wind and frost. On Kenga, waiting for the commission, they made fires and burned them all night. They rang the bell. But thick fog and wind shattered all hopes. Archimandrite Theodosius (Almazov). My memories. Notes of a Solovetsky prisoner. Ed. Society of Church History Lovers, Moscow, 1997)

Prague's Old Town Square attracts with timeless beauty and unique magic that evokes associations with wonderful Christmas tales. Being here at any time of the year among a huge number of tourists from different countries, one cannot but pay attention to the ancient buildings, palaces and houses located around the square. They form a colorful collage of different architectural styles and eras: the Gothic style immediately follows the Romanesque buildings, and next to them you will see the most beautiful Baroque buildings, painted in pastel colors and of great historical and architectural value. Eyes run up from a variety of exquisite facades, decorated with carvings, frescoes, sculptures. Here you can feel that you get a few centuries back in time.

On the eastern side of the Old Town Square, the Old Town Square is home to one of the most elegant examples of late baroque and rococo architecture, the Kinsky Palace. This palace was designed by the same architect who built the St. Mikulas Old Town Cathedral opposite - Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer Old Town Cathedral of St. Mikulas. The palace was built in 1755-1765, and the Kinskys bought the building, which witnessed many significant events in Czech history, in 1768.
There is a legend that the first owner gave a large bribe to three members of the city council in order to get permission to build the facade of the building, breaking the building line of the square. He wanted his palace to be not only the most beautiful in the square, but also immediately stand out from other buildings. The palace really does not fit into the general range of modern buildings. Later, the count was forced to give humiliating detailed explanations of his act, but since he had written permission, he was left alone. But three bribe-takers "answered in full": they were hanged on the gallows, specially placed in front of the same palace.

Representatives of the noble noble family of Kinsky took part in the uprising of the Estates, but were pardoned and subsequently faithfully served the Habsburg dynasty, for which they received the princely title. Beethoven came to the palace at the invitation of Count Kinsky to play. On the ground floor there was a small haberdashery shop of the father of Franz Kafka, and the writer himself attended the German gymnasium, located on the third floor of the palace, during 1893-1901. The writer and public figure Bertha Kinskaya, the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize (in 1905) and the second woman in history to receive the Nobel Prize (after Marie Curie), was born and raised here. In February 1948, Klement Gottwald, speaking from the balcony of the Kinsky Palace to those gathered on the Old Town Square, proclaimed the establishment of communist power in Czechoslovakia. In February 1993, Vaclav Havel, the first president of the independent Czech Republic, spoke from the same balcony. For a long time, the Polish Embassy was located in the palace, and now the premises of the Kinsky Palace are the exhibition halls of the National Gallery.

Another legend is told about the construction of the Kinsky Palace.
At first, work did not go on for a long time: it was delayed by disputes with the city council, the masons were in too much of a hurry, and the newly built wall fell several times. The contractor, craftsmen and masons were already in despair from these failures, but then someone remembered that from ancient times the builders of castles and fortresses walled up an innocent girl in the foundation so that this castle or fortress would later be impregnable and stand strong like a rock. Later, this cruel custom was abandoned and they began to wall up at least a rooster or a cat in the foundation. Prague masons, for fidelity, immured a homeless child in the foundation of the palace, whose parents no one knew. Since then, there have been no more failures in the construction of the building, the palace was built strictly according to the drawings, powerful and beautiful, proudly entering the Old Town Square. Few people know that a handful of bones of an innocent child, whose name has already been forgotten by everyone, are smoldering in the foundation of the Kinsky Palace.

Near the Kinsky Palace stands the house "At the Stone Bell", a medieval residential building built in the form of a tower, on the corner of which there is an original house sign - a stone bell.

According to legend, Saint Ludmila Prince Borzhivoy and Saint Ludmila, the grandmother of Saint Wenceslas Saint Wenceslas, lived in this house, and together through a secret underground passage they visited the underground chapel under the Tyn Church, where a priest conducted a church service especially for them. There is also a legend that the future king Charles IV Prague Charles IV was born here, and it is known for sure that the "Greatest of the Czechs" lived in this house until the construction of his residence in Prague Castle Prague Castle was completed. The house "At the stone bell" was built in the middle of the 13th - early 14th centuries and until 1987 it was completely nondescript. After an expensive renovation, the house was restored to its original appearance and used as a museum and art gallery of contemporary art.

Two buildings are located in front of the majestic Tyn Cathedral, the Tyn Cathedral: the Trczkowski house of Romanesque architecture with an arcade and an 18th-century façade, and the Tyn School.

Trchkovo house is also called "At the white unicorn", because. it housed a pharmacy owned by the father of Josefina Dushkova, a famous Czech opera singer who was friends with Mozart and was born in this house in 1754. Like many other houses on the Old Town Square, the Trczkowski House arose as a result of the merger of two Romanesque houses in the 14th century.

On the site of the Týn School building there were also once two burgher houses from the 13th and 14th centuries, which were merged and expanded to house the parish school of the Týn Cathedral, where Martin Reisek, builder and sculptor of the Powder Tower, taught.

The space under the arches and the premises of the first floor of the Tyn School have been preserved by the Renaissance vaults of the 13th century, and the main facade of the building from the side of the Old Town Square is decorated with the fresco "Ascension of the Virgin Mary".

The southern side of the Old Town Square is decorated with colorful facades of 12 houses of Romanesque or Gothic origin with outlandish emblems, coats of arms and signs, separated by Železná Street. Some houses do not have numbers, but they have interesting names: in the Middle Ages, it was customary to name houses by the name of their architect, owner, or his occupation.
Storch's house is located in the corner of the square and stands out with its bright painted facade. Like the whole Old Town Square, the house is very old. For centuries, some structures were constantly built on this place: the old ones were not demolished, but simply rebuilt. The history of the Storch house began in the 15th century, and today we see a house that was built in 1897. During the restructuring, it was planned to make a completely flat facade without protruding volumetric elements. But when the architect, builders and, in the end, the investor himself - the publisher Alexander Storch - saw the old bay window at the construction stage and appreciated the beauty of the old bay window, it was decided to change the project anyway and leave this Gothic bay window.

But this was not the only surprise that awaited the builders during the repair work. Inside the building, a small chapel was discovered - actually a very mysterious phenomenon, because there were no doors, and the chapel was completely closed on all sides. When they opened it, they saw that in the middle of this small chapel there was a table and a sword lay on it. How he got there, whose he is, and who did it all, no one still knows.
A bright and memorable element of the Storch house is its painting, which was created by one of the largest Czech artists Mikolas Alesh. The building is decorated with a fresco depicting St. Wenceslas in the form of a majestic rider on a white horse, as if entering the Old Town Square.

A tree is painted next to St. Wenceslas, a bird flies in the clouds above the tree. This bird should symbolize the freedom of the Czech people, because the Czech people should feel as free as a bird feels free. Three storks are depicted at the very top of the facade and there is no complex symbolism here - just the German surname of the owner of the building "Storch" is translated into Russian as "stork". In addition, the house of Storch is decorated with images of Jan Amos Comenius, a monk, the coat of arms of the Czech kingdom and the old coat of arms of Prague A walk through the Old Town Hall.

The tallest among the buildings on the south side of the Old Town Square is the house "At the stone lamb".

In the center of the facade of the building there is a plaque depicting a girl and a lamb next to her. This lamb has only one horn, and a very interesting story is connected with this, which says that a bricklayer who worked with a facade once grabbed the horn so as not to fall and broke it off. Therefore, sometimes the house "At the stone lamb" is called the house "At the white unicorn." This also suggests that the building served as a pharmacy during the Middle Ages.

The medicine of medieval Prague was very specific: people were treated with dried frog legs, grated spider powders and infusions of rat urine, but the horn of the mythical unicorn was considered the most popular and most cherished medicine. The unicorn was a symbol of health, longevity and success, and the medicine from its frayed horn gave good immunity and strength, including sexual strength. Therefore, the name of the house "At the White Unicorn" was the best advertisement for any pharmacy.
Adjacent to the house "At the stone lamb" is the house "At the stone table", which since 1907 has gained fame as the main bohemian center of Prague, where the then owner Berta Fantova-Wertheim opened a literary salon.

It was visited by many famous personalities such as Franz Kafka, Max Brod and Albert Einstein. A memorial plaque is dedicated to the last of them: “In this house in 1911-1912, Albert Einstein, professor of theoretical physics at Prague University, the creator of the theory of relativity and Nobel Prize winner, played the violin and met fellow writers.”

The next house "At Lazar's" suffered from floods for many years, which led to the need to raise the ground level by 4 meters. Thanks to this, the medieval Romanesque vaults of the basements of the house "U Lazar" have been preserved.

The house "At the Golden Unicorn", located on the corner of the Old Town Square and Zelezna Street, is one of the oldest houses in Prague.

In the 19th century, the building housed the music school of the composer Berdzhik Smetana, the founder of Czech music, to which a memorial plaque on the house "At the Golden Unicorn" is dedicated.

The next 7 houses on the south side of the Old Town Square are located between Zhelezna and Melantrichova streets. With their facades, these houses look at the facade of the Old Town Hall Old Town Hall, therefore, they do not attract the attention of numerous guests of Prague, whose eyes are turned in the opposite direction - at the town hall tower Old Town Hall tower with astronomical clock Orloj Prague chimes Orloj. The names of these houses are not quite common: “At the golden camel”, “At the golden crown”, “At the golden horse”, “At the white angel”, “At the red fox”, “At the blue star”, “At the chimes”. In May 1945, the houses were damaged during the Prague uprising and the battles for the liberation of the city, and restored 10 years later. The house "At the Blue Star" houses the oldest wine cellar in Prague - the so-called Knight's Hall.

At the end of the 19th century, a complete redevelopment was carried out on the northern side of the Old Town Square, and now there are only 4 buildings between Parizhskaya and Long streets.

The former monastery of the Paulines suffered the least from the reconstruction. Initially, three houses of Romanesque origin of the 12th century stood on this site. Prague German Lutherans have been unsuccessfully trying for several years to find a church in the Old Town for worship. In 1610, it was decided to build the Evangelical Church of St. Salvador on the Old Town Square, and the entire Protestant Europe raised funds for the construction of a new church, thereby demonstrating unity in the fight against the Habsburg, i.e. Catholic camp.
The current appearance of the building was acquired after its restructuring by the new owners - the paulins (the monastic order of the brothers of St. Paul the First Hermit). After the abolition of the monastery, the building housed the barracks, the second Prague Mint, the Prague Insurance Company, and now it is an evangelical church.

The next two buildings on the north side of the Old Town Square are occupied by the Ministry of Regional Development of the Czech Republic. The left, narrower building imitates the baroque of the demolished house "At the Golden Star". The right, wide building has a triaxial symmetrical facade and is called "At the Imperial Gate". In the niche of the arched opening at the top there is a mosaic "Praise of Prague", on the sides of which there are allegorical sculptural groups "Extinguishing the fire" and "Cry for help". The fire theme in the decoration of the facade of the building appeared due to the fact that the house was built by order of the former Prague Fire Insurance Company.

The last house on the north side of the Old Town Square at the corner of Prazhskaya Street is the Sherov House. Before the reconstruction, two magnificent baroque houses stood on this site, which were demolished in 1895, and a tenement house was built instead, which at that time was called the Olbramovsky House.

There is a legend about this house. Many owners and tenants have changed in the Olbramovsky House on the Old Town Square. As soon as someone settled in it, they soon began to look for a new roof over their heads. People said that at night strange things happened in the gloomy corridors: hurried steps and angry voices were heard from the darkness, and more than one tenant ended up with broken ribs. The price of the house kept falling and falling, and it was bought by a wealthy citizen who was more greedy than brave, hoping to get rich quick. He moved in with his entire family and servants and occupied the entire first floor.
One night, an old maid was walking along a dark corridor and suddenly met an unfamiliar woman who looked like a nun. The maid greeted her and walked on, but then she realized that she had never seen this woman in the house, so she looked back at her anxiously. The unknown woman raised her hands and suddenly, with a face contorted with anger, rushed at the maid, as if about to gouge out her eyes. She did not expect such actions, rushed to the kitchen and, slamming the door, quickly pushed the latch. The maid stood there for a long time, holding her breath and listening. It didn't take long for her to decide to open the door and look out into the corridor, but the angry nun was gone. The maid ran to the master and told him everything in a trembling voice. A wealthy citizen ordered the servants to immediately search the whole house, but they did not find anyone and decided that the servant had thought of all this.
A few days later, the owner of the house himself met with a strange visitor. He stood in her way and wanted to grab her by the shoulders, but his hands passed through the air as if no one was there. The owner staggered, wanted to run away, but already felt painful scratches that appeared on his face and neck. He defended himself as best he could, but it turned out that he only flailed his hands in the air, until, finally, icy fingers grabbed his throat and began to squeeze him more and more, and a voice filled with hatred hissed in his face: “This is not Your house! It belongs to the nuns and no one else!”
The man, having gathered the last of his strength, freed himself, ran into his room and there he fell to the floor, neither alive nor dead. The servants were frightened by the sudden scream and the fall of the body, they quickly ran and saw their master with a bloodied face. They put him on the bed, and he was between life and death for a long time before he came to his senses from this nightly meeting.
When, after a long time, the owner recovered, he ordered to study the old documents and ask around the pundits about the past of this house. And so he learned the truth. Once the house belonged to the old Prague noble family Olbramovich, who organized a shelter for devout women within its walls, and they looked after the sick, collected abandoned children and taught girls to embroider. Although they were not bound by a vow to any order, they lived like nuns in a convent. It was said that because of constant loneliness and reflection, especially impressionable women more than once slipped into heresy or went crazy.
Having learned this, the wealthy city dweller hastily moved, and sold the Olbramovsky house to the first buyer who appeared. However, he could not forget the night meeting, and for a long time at night he heard a crazy voice hissing in his face: “This is our house! This is our house! This is our house!".

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