Valerii Rybarskii

Valerii Rybarskii was an architect in Mariampol, then in the Russian Empire (now Marijampolė, Lithuania). In 1889, when the wooden bet midrash that stood in the city’s Khevre poalim kloyz (the workers’ private study house in the courtyard that also housed the city’s Great Synagogue) was on the verge of collapse, he designed a brick building to replace it. The design was approved in 1890. The Torah ark in the kloyz is surmounted by tablets of the Law flanked by rampant lions and topped with a crown, with hands making the priestly blessing. In 1899, Rybarskii designed the city’s Hakhnasat Orḥim Synagogue. His designs integrated neo-Romanesque, neo-Gothic, and “oriental” elements. Rybarskii also designed churches, incorporating similar architectural characteristics.