Notice the building at 13, Volodarsky Street. The first and only dental school in the northwestern corner of the Russian Empire, that of L. Shapiro and A. Demikhovsky, moved from the house of Weisbrem at 24, Komsomolskaya Street to the private house of von Helmersen in 1907.Notably, according to the laws of that time, higher educational institutions in the northwestern corner of the Russian Empire should not have existed, as the tsarist authorities feared progressive-minded youth. At the time, the educational expertise of dental specialists in the Belarusian provinces was extremely low.This sparked the initiative of Dr. Lev Shapiro and dentist Abram Demikhovsky, who offered to open a dental school in Minsk to the provincial authorities. Students of both genders and at least 17 years of age enrolled in the school. By the beginning of its first academic year, over 50 applications had been submitted by prospective students.A year later, a second dental school, that of the Minsk dentist Raphael Kaplan, also began to operate here, with both schools primarily attended by Jewish youth. In 1909, the schools merged into the Minsk Dental School for 130 students, operating a free dental clinic.