The synagogue known as the Cold Synagogue (as it was not heated during winter), once considered the most important Jewish temple in Mogilev, was founded ca. 1680. It was located near the intersection of Vialikaya Hramadzianskaya Street and Pravonaberezhnaya Street, in the Jewish district of Shkolishche, at the site which today is marked with a symbolic menorah (at the back of the preserved Shkolishche Synagogue, next to the blue gazebo erected on the anniversary of the establishment of the local water supply company).
It was a wooden building, covered with a very high gable roof, built on a complex plan with numerous annexes. The interior was almost entirely covered with magnificent polychromes, painted in 1745 by an artist from Słuck, Chaim ben Icchak Halevi Segal. Since the beginning of the 20th century, these paintings have gained renown in artistic circles all around the world. In 1918, it was decided that the synagogue would be granted legal protection by the Bolshevik authorities; this was one of the first legal acts introduced in Soviet Belarus. Nevertheless, the synagogue was closed down in 1938 and then demolished by the authorities.
