A 26-year-old officer, Kostiantyn Ksido, married a 37-year-old countess, Kateryna Levashova — deaf-mute, no longer young, and unattractive by contemporaries’ accounts, but the owner of 28 villages and a considerable fortune. On her dowry he built one of the largest palaces in Ukraine. This isn’t a tour-guide legend: contemporaries wrote openly about a marriage of convenience, though one source claims the count stayed faithful to his wife for life.
The palace’s defining architectural feature is that it has no “back” facade: from the courtyard, it’s a Classicist colonnade; from the Southern Buh riverbank, its walls are faced with hewn stone and flanked by three round towers, resembling a medieval fortress. Construction ran from 1911 to 1915 and stopped when World War I began, as Ksido, a military engineer, was called to the front.
General Information
| What? | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Count Ksido’s Palace |
| Address | Khmilnyk, Vinnytsia Oblast, on the bank of the Southern Buh |
| Founded | 1911–1915 (unfinished) |
| Commissioned by | Kostiantyn Ksido, funded by Countess Kateryna Levashova’s dowry |
| Architect | Academician Ivan Fomin |
| Form/Towers | Two entirely different facades: a Classicist colonnade facing the courtyard, a Renaissance fortress with three round towers facing the river |
| Material | Hewn stone, brick |
| Condition | Structurally unsafe, needs restoration |
| Status | Cultural heritage landmark |
| Entry | Limited, the building stands empty and neglected |
The Marriage That Paid for the Palace
I think the asymmetry between the palace’s two facades is an accidental but telling image of the Ksido marriage itself: one side showy and appealing, the other stern and closed off, like the calculation behind the wedding. After the revolution, the couple left for the West, and Ksido saw his unfinished palace again only in 1942.
The Old Tower Next Door
An octagonal 16th-century tower survives beside the palace — a remnant of the medieval castle on whose foundations the Ksido complex was built. For the last fifty years, the tower’s top two floors have housed Khmilnyk’s historical museum.
What Not to Expect
Don’t expect a finished palace: construction stopped in 1915 and was never fully resumed, so several elements the architect Fomin planned were never built. A hotel operated here for decades, but the building is now structurally unsafe — this isn’t a museum with controlled access, but a landmark that calls for caution when visiting.
What to See Nearby and How to Fit It Into a Route
- The historical museum in the castle tower — on the same complex grounds.
- Trinity Church — nearby, in Khmilnyk’s historic center.
- Cherepashynetskyi Quarry — about 29 miles (~47 km), another site on this list in Vinnytsia Oblast.
Practical Information
- Entry: limited due to the building’s unsafe condition; the surrounding grounds are accessible
- How to get there: by car or bus from Vinnytsia, about 30–37 miles (~50–60 km)
- Time needed: 1 hour, including the castle tower and museum
- Special conditions: don’t enter unsafe interior spaces; view from outside
Conclusion
Ksido’s Palace is a rare case where a building’s architectural asymmetry literally mirrors the story of its creation: a marriage of convenience, a dream interrupted by war, and a facade that still hasn’t decided which face to show the world.
