“Ukrainian Eden”

As we plan our travels, especially the summer ones, we often make whole must-see lists of parks and palaces of Western Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Palace of Fontainebleau outside Paris, the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, the park around the Crystal Palace in Porto, the amazing palace complex in Jaipur (India), the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, all go in there. Meanwhile, we have no idea how many unexplored, unseen, even unknown to us palaces, parks, and gardens our own country hides from us. Or rather not, it hides nothing: go and see, plunge into that beauty and harmony, and change yourself for the better. Every weekend, if you like to. You will be surprised at the taste, level, and silhouettes of those places, their history and related names, forever associated with them. They could keep a curious tourist busy for years. It would take a thick notepad to put down all the routes and sights. Most importantly, these are not just cultural monuments, they are our “places of force,” accumulating the power of the spirit, ideas, and feelings.

“When I hear the hackneyed opinion that Ukraine has never had its own elite and aristocracy, I think that the matter was simply underexplored by Ukrainians themselves. We just need to invest our feelings and restore this broken ‘string of pearls,’ which must be carefully sought out and threaded,” wrote Den/The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna in her traditional introduction column. “We must restore the ‘gardens of friendship,’ where the trees of Love and Faithfulness grew and of which only romantic ruins have survived, which again need love, affection, and faithfulness. For as we look at these fantastic trees, parks, century-old lime trees, oak groves, we see behind them the indestructible power of spirit and ideas. So, we must make this absolutely unique wonder Ukraine’s visiting card. It harmonizes the surrounding space, moreover, it ‘restores’ people. The most painful traumas of the 20th century are the crippled people, deformed values, and the distorted coordinate system…”

So, for the most recent glossy Den’s creative team has handpicked the most interesting materials concerning Ukrainian palaces and their adjacent parks. For instance, the exclusive photoreportage “Samchyky. Incognita.” “Ukraine has only three similar preserves. In Chernihiv oblast, this is Kachanivka and Baturyn. And, of course, our Samchyky, in Khmelnytsky oblast,” tells Bohdan Pazhymsky, director of the complex. On the relatively small area, only 19 hectares, the descendants of the Parzymskis, an ancient Polish family, have revived the unique beauty, insidiously hidden from sight decades ago by the Soviets and a thick layer of age-old dirt.

On the pages of the recent Route No.1 you will be also able to read interview with Fedir Hontsa, an urban architect from Cherkasy, and get to know his ideas on parks for thinking. There will also be an article on the wonderful art of topiary: trimming shrubs and trees. And of course, check out the traditional “fun facts” and infographics.

There is so much more to find in the new Route No.1!

Issue No. 34 of Route No.1. Ukrainian Eden will be available on newsstands and on Den/The Day’s website starting from July 31.