Garden named after Shevchenko
There is an amazing city park named after Shevchenko Garden in the historical center of Kharkov. The park was named after Taras Shevchenko, a Ukrainian poet and artist.
The garden was founded in 1804 by Vasily Karazin, the founder of Kharkov University. They decided to set it up back then on the very edge of the city in an oak grove. The garden consisted of an upper and a lower part, a landscaped park was set up above, and a botanical garden was laid out on the lower terrace. In 1808, an astronomical observatory was built in the park, and in 1896, the 3rd zoo in the Russian Empire. In the 1930s, a large-scale restructuring began in the garden, during which new shrubs, alleys, and a fountain appeared. In 1935, a monument to Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko was unveiled, at the same time the park was renamed in his honor.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Shevchenko Garden was very seriously damaged. During the fighting, more than half of the trees were destroyed, and the alley from the Palace of Pioneers to the monument to Shevchenko was turned into a cemetery for high-ranking officers. The Nazis wanted to create a kind of "pantheon of German military glory" here. When the Soviet troops recaptured the city in 1943, the cemetery was removed. After the end of the war, the garden began to be restored under the guidance of renowned architects and arborists. In 1955, Kharkov turned 300 years old, and specially for this date, a cascading staircase with water flowing down it was built in the Shevchenko city garden. The upper part offers a stunning view of the Lopan River. In 1963, a hall for watching films and concerts was built in the park.
There are a lot of interesting monuments in the garden, among which the most famous is the monument to Taras Shevchenko. The statue of the poet himself is made of bronze, and the pedestal is made of labradorite rock. The height of the statue is 5.5 meters, and together with the base it is 16.5 meters, which made the monument the tallest in the USSR. After the war, he lost this status. In total, 400 tons of labradorite and 30 tons of bronze were spent on the construction of the monument. A narrow-gauge railway was built here specifically for the construction. In 1907, the monument to Vasily Nazarovich Karazin was unveiled, then it was moved several times, and today it can be seen near the main entrance to Kharkov University. In 2001, the Metalist football club erected a 1.5 meter diameter ball monument. In 2004, on the 350th anniversary of Kharkov, Kiev presented the monument "Archangel Michael", which was erected on the 50th parallel of the northern latitude, since Kharkov is considered the largest city at this latitude. Also in 2010, commemorative plaques "50th parallel" were unveiled here, which show the direction of this parallel. In the center there is a circle on which the distance to different capital cities is plotted.
A walk in the park is suitable for lovers of a quiet family vacation
