Strolling across Sofiivka

The park is an oasis of beauty and mystery. Taking a walk across Uman’s Sofiivka Park always brings out those special kinds of contemplations. It was built for a beloved woman. Don’t even dream to make the round of it in a single day. There is the Akheront River, across which a modern-day Charon will ferry you to the kingdom of the dead for a symbolic sum. It also offers an opportunity to think about the changeability of life, confess your sins, and after all, feel yourself a happy person. It is not without a reason that the count once wrote in the Potocki Grotto, in Polish, “May the unhappy ones come in and become happy, and may the happy ones become even happier.”

The main entrance to the park is adorned by two stone towers whose crowns resemble those in the temple of Vesta, the Roman virgin goddess of home and hearth. They say that Uman girls try to bring their future husbands here. If you pass under the towers together, your union will be unbreakable. Actually, there are plenty of legends connected with Sofiivka. These are legends about the places where cherished dreams come true.

For example, one can recover after coming to the Bathing Venus. If one drinks water from this spring, disease will surely leave one’s body. There is also a big waterfall created for those who can “go between the drops.” People eager to try their luck stand in lines near the waterfall. They have to follow the passage. If no drop falls on you, all you have wished will come true.

KYIV’S CHESTNUT TREES COME FROM UMAN

Sofiivka is a dendrology park. One can see unique plants there; the total number of species is more than 3,000. Incidentally, Uman scholars are working on breading new species that could grow, for example, in the shadows of the trees. For the park is the oldest centre studying the life of plants placed in conditions they are not used to. Walking along the numerous paths and alleys, we have discovered an ascetic ball-shaped hornbeam, near which no other plants can grow. There are weeping firs and sycamine, a white periwinkle, firs with red cones, a “reverse” tree, (whose leaves are red in summer and green in autumn), a sycamore, a black birch, tulip tree which is in blossom only in June. It is hard to count them all.

Incidentally, there were few plants here in the time of Potocki. The park had to be built quickly, so the serfs brought carts full of lindens, wild pear trees, apple trees, elms, and other trees, and planted them on the valleys, whereas the exotic trees were brought via Black Sea routes and planted in ravines, which would serve to protect them from wind and frost.

The guide told us that Kyiv’s chestnut trees come from Uman. It was specifically from Uman that they took saplings for the capital’s boulevards. Today the park is inhabited by numerous squirrels. They are not easily frightened, as the visitors bring nuts for them, and the playful animals eagerly regale themselves on the dainties. As soon as the knock of one nut on another is heard, the careful creatures will take them away at once. Uman’s birds are also brave: they come, sit on your arm and eat whatever you offer to them — tomtits are the bravest ones.

FILBERT NUT NOT FOR CHARON

At the moment active trade prevents one from hearing the chorus of frogs and birds while taking a stroll.

“Previously, trade was not allowed here, now Sofiivka resembles a mini-market, because the rents help the park to survive. It is like a living creature constantly in need of attention. The park is expanded on a regular basis, new things are created all the time. Hence, money is needed. We have found a way out. Maybe it is not the most convenient one, but we cannot do otherwise,” the guide explained.

But you forget about everything when you see the Krasnostavsky pond with the famous “serpent” fountain. This pond caused the great flood in Sofiivka in 1980, when over a hectare of land was under water and animals were swimming even in the drawers of the desk of the park’s director Ivan Kosenko. There’s a silver lining to it, though: it was then that the water brought to the surface a very precious finding — a stone marked “1938” (the year when the park’s central alley was built). The pond is adorned with the natural fountain serpent, over 18-meters high, and the water flows from 30 valves that look like serpent teeth, for better spread. However, it appears that water in Sofiivka is worth its weight in gold (Uman has problems with water supplies: it is switched off in the morning, from six to nine a.m. and in the evening, six to nine p.m.). In order to save water, the sluices are opened so that the serpent’s height reaches only 12 meters.

Not far from there, on the Zboriv Square, there is a pool, where real goldfish swim. However, they are placed there only when the water is warm enough; the wish-granters spend winter in a pool in which aquatic animals are kept.

One can feel oneself a dictator on Love Island. Why a dictator? There is a hypothesis that it was specifically on Love Island that Hitler and Mussolini met and even signed an important document. Today one can get there by ferry, at a cost of 40 hryvnias. For those who like extremes there is an underground river. To cover 223 meters on a boat, together with other 40 visitors, one has to stand in a huge line, so we postponed this attraction till our next trip to Sofiivka. Incidentally, you ought to pay 20 hryvnias to the modern-day Charon, while his predecessor required but a coin or a nut. Although 10 hectares of the park area have been planted with filber nut, this “currency” is no longer accepted.

MENDING CUPID

To the left of Zboriv Square there is a grotto — a huge granite rock, weighing over 300 tons, is hanging in the air sustained on merely three points. Nature itself has tested this structure for reliability. After the earthquakes of 1838, 1976, and 1986, the grotto remained undamaged. It is called a grotto with “neither fear nor doubt.” Local residents say jokingly that Ukrainian politicians should be brought here on a systemic basis. It is said that if one tells lies in the grotto, a big stone will fall on one’s head. We wanted to see something light after the grotto, and so we went with the throngs to pay homage to Cupid, the park’s sculpture that has probably suffered the most. Everyone wants to make photo with the statue in the background, to hug it or cuddle up to it. So it appears that this god of love is frequently damaged, and Kyiv’s sculptor Yevhen Didur often comes to visit Sofiivka, as he is called to repair Cupid.

There are also graves on the park’s territory, real and symbolical. The story about Potocki’s first marriage is particularly sad. The count’s parents were against his marriage and kidnapped his young wife Gertruda Komorowska. They wanted to bring her to a monastery and force her to refrain from marriage. As they were approaching the monastery they met a string of sledges. To prevent Gertruda from calling somebody for help, they covered her with pillows. When the string passed, it appeared that the woman, already pregnant, suffocated under the weight of the pillows. Her body was thrown into an ice-hole in a pond. In commemoration of this tragic event, Potocki arranged a corner in Sofiivka in Gertruda’s memory.

The Three Tears waterfall is a place where Sofia and Stanislaw’s three children were buried, they died in childhood of an epidemic. Not far from there grows an ancient linden, which witnessed the construction of the park. Several years ago it was struck by lightning and almost died. But the branches were cleared from mistletoe and now the linden flowers produce a sweet odor. The plants that were grown in conservatories and greenhouses in Potocki’s times, were less fortunate — bananas, pineapples, figs, dates, oranges, lemons and other exotic plants were grown here since 1796. They even survived the hard times of the war (rumours have it that Eric Koch used Sofiivka as his own estate, so hardly anything was ruined here). But in the early 1990s all plants perished because the lights were switched off. At that time, in Uman, as throughout Ukraine, light was frequently switched off out of economic reasons, and exotic plants could not survive this violation in the winter, they all froze.

Our excursion lasted for two hours. For three hours more we strolled across the park. But we did not manage to make the full round of it, as we had to go back to our bus. Neither did we manage to say good-bye to the park as we wished. It started drizzling, then the rain began to fall, so we ran, feasting our eyes on swans who were gracefully floating over Lishchynovy Pond’s surface.

Farewell, Sofiivka! We will come back.