The House with Drag­ons is a unique exam­ple of wood­en Art Nou­veau archi­tec­ture, built in 1917 by archi­tect Viken­ty Orzh­eszko for a local gym­na­si­um teacher, Bro­nis­law Bystrzy­c­ki. Its facade is crowned with sev­en carved wood­en drag­on heads: six arranged in pairs fac­ing the car­di­nal direc­tions, and one soli­tary head fac­ing east to greet the ris­ing sun. There are two main the­o­ries about the ori­gin of the drag­on motif: one links it to the Nor­we­gian stave church in Borgund, while the oth­er sees it as a trib­ute to Chi­nese cul­ture and the Year of the Drag­on, the year Tom­sk was found­ed. After the Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion, the house was nation­al­ized and used as a rev­o­lu­tion­ary head­quar­ters. Though the rest of the decor is min­i­mal, the drag­ons and the sharp-angled cor­ner tow­er make this house a stand­out piece of fan­tas­ti­cal wood­en archi­tec­ture in Rus­sia.