It's a hot July day in Kyiv, and the weekend is coming quickly to an end. There is always the option of going somewhere close to have a cold beer. But what was that your significant other said about a romantic trip together to see the Ukrainian countryside? - I don't have the time dear - you insist - I have so much work to do. It's already Sunday and it's too late to start thinking about gallivanting around in the provinces. Wrong answer. There is a marvellous spot to be discovered only two hours drive from Kyiv. It's called Sofiyivka, a park and museum located near the town of Uman in Cherkasy region.
History
Once upon a time in the late 18th century, there lived a Polish Count named Stanislav Potocki, who owned extensive lands and serfs in central Ukraine. Poland was on the verge of disappearing from the map of Europe, the victim of expanding Russia and ambitious Prussia. Potocki gradually became more involved in regional politics, which were increasingly controlled from Moscow. So when the Polish Sejm adopted a new constitution that restricted the rights of landowners, Potocki and a few of his fellow noblemen took their grievances to the Czar's army, conducting talks at the Russian military headquarters in Yasi, Romania.
It was in Yasi that he met his future wife Sofiya, the beautiful daughter of an impoverished Greek merchant whose wife was forced to become a courtesan for foreign diplomats in Istanbul. Sofiya's mother sent her daughter to Warsaw, in the company of the Polish ambassador, to find a rich husband. But on the way, the southern enchantress got married to a Russian officer and soon made her way into East European society and geopolitical intrigue.
Potocki was also married and like Sofiya had children. Both eventually got divorced, but by this time Potocki had become further estranged from his native land, which erupted in revolt against territorial partitions to Russia and Prussia. Like his new wife, the Polish count gradually grew to depend on Russia's Catherine the Great, who bestowed him with honors and rank. In Poland, Potocki was sentenced to death in absentee for treason. On 29 September 1794, his portrait was hanged instead. Returning to Ukraine, he decided to enshrine his love for Sofiya in the park that still stands to this day, but which he never saw completed.
The park
Sofiyivka park covers 45 hectares and cost a small fortune to build. The engineering was state of the art for its time, and the design of the landscape as fashionable as it was enduring.
Entering the park, a visitor passes along an alley leading to an elegantly constructed Flora Pavilion. Swans and rowboats of kissing couples traverse a pond. Then there is the beautiful Snake fountain, whose iridescent waters reflect the surrounding grounds. The atmosphere is that of a romantic fairytale.
But the park's impressions are as contradictory as its history. Behind the Flora Pavilion, for example, lies the Valley of the Giants, a sleepily arranged exposition of granite boulders. Huge megaliths located in picturesque settings make passers-by feel nostalgic for the lost grandeur of a primeval paradise.
Interestingly, the theme of ancient monuments as part of an artificially created landscape coincided with the dawn of archeological studies in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Sofiyivka's landscape evokes a strong albeit indefinite sense of the past.
The original emotions that inspired the park's creation are as prevalent as ever. The designers succeed in blending the themes of love and death. On the one hand, there are beautiful white-marble statues of ancient Venus, Apollo and cupid, an Island of Love and pink pavilions.
On the other hand, the park features an underground river Styx, 224 meters long. Taking a boat from the Dead Lake, one floats through complete darkness, with the exception of four windows in the granite ceiling: Childhood, Youth, Adulthood and Death.
In contrast to the beautiful landscape above, the River of Death symbolizes the endurance of nature as compared to empire, and the victory of death over human ambitions - something the founder knew all too well.
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