Mykola Zharikov

Mykola Leonidovych Zharikov, known in Russian as Nikolai Leonidovich Zharikov, was born on 7 November 1931 in Sloviansk, in the Donetsk region of what was then the Ukrainian SSR. He studied at the Kharkiv Civil Engineering Institute and graduated in 1956, the year he began his building career in Zaporizhzhia.

In Zaporizhzhia Zharikov proposed the dam and overpass that joined the old and new parts of the city. Construction began in March 1959 and the link opened on 5 November 1962.

From 1964 to 1978 he directed the Zaporizhzhia branch of the Ukrmistobudproekt institute, later known as Zaporizhtsyvilproekt. His work included the detailed plan of the city centre (1968), the institute's own building, plans for the squares now known as Festivalna, Vokzalna, Akademika Vernadskoho and Troitska, and the Museum of the History of Zaporozhian Cossacks on Khortytsia island. His concept for the museum won first prize in a republican competition in 1973 and the building, which set modernist architecture into the rocky landscape of the island, opened in 1975. He also designed the Museum of the Defence of Sevastopol 1941 to 1942 (1981).

From 1978 to 1987 he was first deputy chairman of Gosstroy, the State Construction Committee of the Ukrainian SSR, and he was chief editor of the four volume reference work on the monuments of town planning and architecture of the Ukrainian SSR (1983 to 1986).

He was chief architect of Kyiv from 1987 to 1992 and deputy head of the city's main architecture department from 1993 to 1996. His Kyiv work included housing on what is now Yordanska Street in Obolon, the monolithic concrete housing on Balzaka Street in Troieshchyna, the memorial to the victims of the Chernobyl disaster near Nahirna Street, the Church of St Andrew the First-Called on Andriivskyi Descent (2000 to 2002), the Church of St Nicholas in memory of the Chernobyl victims (2003 to 2011) and the monument to Hetman Petro Sahaidachny on Kontraktova Square. He initiated the concept for the interior of Zoloti Vorota metro station in the style of old Kyivan architecture and shared the State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR for it in 1991. From 1996 he led his own architectural studio in Kyiv.

Zharikov was a member of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine and a full member of the Academy of Architecture of Ukraine. He spoke out against the demolition of architectural monuments and careless building in Kyiv's historic centre, and was co-chair of a public committee for the protection of Kyiv's architecture. In 2008 he published a book of memoirs titled My Maidans. Colleagues in Zaporizhzhia remembered him as a mentor who helped young architects develop in the profession.

Zharikov died on 20 October 2026, aged 94, a little over two weeks before his 95th birthday on 7 November. His death was announced by the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning of Zaporizhzhia City Council. The architectural communities of Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv said farewell to him on 22 October 2026. The cause of death has not been made public.

Zharikov's work shaped the centres of two major Ukrainian cities. In Zaporizhzhia the Khortytsia museum complex, the city centre plan and the dam linking the old and new city remain part of daily life, and in Kyiv his churches, Chernobyl memorial and the Zoloti Vorota station are familiar landmarks. He was honoured as an Honoured Architect of the Ukrainian SSR (1987) and People's Architect of Ukraine (1999).