On the slope of the Berezuy ravine, where the walls of the Kaluga Kremlin once stood, at 4 K. Marx Street, there is a unique building that was once the management of the Syzran-Vyazma Railway.

This site was originally developed by provincial architect Ivan Denisovich Yasnigin, who took office on January 1, 1785. His first projects in Kaluga included the "Salt Warehouses." As local historian Margarita Fechner noted, the facades of the single-story building of the "warehouses" were extremely simple and utilitarian, which corresponded to the building's purpose and harmoniously blended with the western wing of the Public Places.

Contemporaries who saw the salt warehouses recall that the building was adorned with a four-column portico and well-placed openings. It was completed in 1787 and served as a "wing" of the chamber building. Unfortunately, Yasnigin's first project has not survived. However, it can be imagined by looking at the architect's second project, the post office building at 2 Old Trade, which has survived to this day.

The salt warehouses were demolished in the late 19th century, and in their place, a three-story building for the management of the Syzran-Vyazma Railway appeared in 1893. This occurred nearly twenty years after the opening of the railway station in Kaluga. The Vyazma railway line, the Pavletsk Ryazhsk-Vyazma Railway, and the Kaluga station with its first terminal opened on December 28, 1874, which was a significant event for the townspeople.

The building we see in the photo housed the Kaluga branch of the railway, opened on December 28. Until the 1950s, the fate of the railway hub was decided here. In 1913, the length of the Syzran-Vyazma Railway was 1,393.9 km, of which more than a hundred kilometers were double-tracked. The railway had 504 locomotives, 669 passenger cars, and 11,086 freight cars at its disposal.

The railway is also connected to the construction of railway workshops in Kaluga, where rolling stock was serviced and repaired. In the fall of 1878, a railway primary school was opened, which still exists today under a different name, educating the children of railway workers and craftsmen.

After the railway was disbanded in 1959, the Kaluga Research Institute of Telemechanical Devices (KNIITMU) moved into the building, and since then, the owner of the building has not changed, although the building itself has undergone changes.

A fourth floor was added during the Soviet era, and it harmoniously blended into the original architect's design. Kaluga residents also share that the former building of the SVZhD has amazing basements where one can get lost, much like in the Kerch catacombs.