Water Tower, Mariupol

temporarily unavailableas of 2026-10-081910Pryazovia

Photo: Oleksandr Malyon · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Viktor Nielsen’s 33-metre tower of 1910 — a symbol of old Mariupol that is decaying under occupation.

Mariupol’s water tower was designed by the architect Viktor Nielsen; the city waterworks started on 3 July 1910 (Suspilne). The tower is about 33 metres high (zabytki.in.ua); its construction was partly paid for by patrons, among them the brick manufacturer Oleksandr Kharadzhaiev (Radio Svoboda). After 1932 it became a fire watchtower (Radio Svoboda), and in 1983 it was entered in the register of architectural monuments of local importance (zabytki.in.ua). From 2016 the cultural space “Vezha” worked here (Suspilne). In March 2022 people sheltered in the tower from shelling, and on 9 December 2022 resistance members took the occupiers’ flag down from it (Ukrinform). In January 2024 the wind tore off part of the roof; the city council said the occupiers had only carried the property out of the tower (Ukrinform).