.
Who has ever turned off the main street and walked along the narrow Konstantinovskaya Street covered with cobblestones in the direction of the City Garden? There are still some old merchant mansions here. Unlike the noble ones, they are without columns, but with stucco decorations under the windows — architecture, as they say, without fancy. In this area in the second half of the XIX century, or rather in 1863 Mariupol residents laid City Garden, located on a high hill on thirteen and a half hectares of land.
It did not arise on an empty vesta. At the hill, along Malaya Sadovaya Street, fruit trees were growing. In 1889, at the request of the City Council, the famous Mariupol gardener and public figure G.G. Psalti subjected the City Garden to a complete and radical redesign. Along with creative fantasy and artistic taste, he appealed to strict arithmetic calculation and geometric correctness.
The builders cherished the thought of creating a fountain, one of the obligatory attributes of any city garden. But this idea had to be abandoned as there was no source that could be used for its operation. The fountain appeared in the City Garden only in 1910, after the water supply networks were laid.
If we could travel back at least a hundred years and look at the City Garden on a nice day, we would see this picture. Straight, diverging alleys fenced with lilac bushes. The crowns of the trees are like a solid green wall. To the right of the main entrance you can see picturesque piles of stones covered with moss and shells, the stream that flows along the man-made stony bed and enlivens this romantic corner.
The city garden is open, as the advertisements posted in the streets at that time said, «for all kinds of amusements of the most honorable public of Mariupol».
.
Among the structures of the park of that time, the full-length monument to Alexander Pushkin made of white marble attracted attention. Leaning his left foot on blocks of granite, the poet calmly looks from the height of the pedestal. The monument was located near the rotunda — a tall wooden gazebo, a favorite resting place of Mariupol residents.
At the far edge of the park, overlooking the sea, there was a small romantic building — a belvedere. It entered the history of the park under the name of «viewpoint».
In 1929-1930 the elevated part of the garden was connected to Slobodka by a monumental stone staircase of 99 steps. To make the staircase seem even longer, the architect interrupted it with 19 recreation areas. It blended organically into the landscape, giving this section of the park a solemn appearance.
The garden features 17 species of trees: linden, oak, chestnut, maple, Japanese saphora, willow, mulberry, walnut, ash, poplar, acacia and others. Some of them are over a hundred years old. There are also 11 species of ornamental shrubs in the garden, including yellow acacia, barberry, hawthorn.
A city garden can and should receive guests not only in summer, but also in fall and winter. Isn’t it pleasant to walk along the alleys in the beautiful season of leaf fall? The air is saturated with the honeyed smell of fallen leaves, there is a special silence in the alleys, it is good to think and breathe here.
Winter in the park also has its charms, you just have to learn to look and see. When you come here, it is as if you are transported to a fairy tale. Everything sparkles in the rays of the winter sun, the trees are fabulously beautiful in the scattering of frozen snowflakes. Silence…
At different times A. Kuindzhi and K. Bohayevsky, A. Serafimovich and A. Novikov-Priboy, M. Grishko — it is impossible to list them all.
In 2013 the City Garden celebrated its 150th anniversary. It still remains a favorite place of recreation of Mariupol residents. Quite recently, by the Youth Day, the arch at the central entrance was reconstructed.
The communal enterprise «Association of Parks of Culture and Recreation», which includes the City Garden, was reorganized. Now the oldest park of the city, together with others — the Park of Culture and Recreation named after V.V. Leporsky, Primorsky Park. Leporsky, Primorsky Park and left-bank children’s park «Veselka», according to the decision of the session of the City Council on June 18, are included in the structure of the Palace of Culture «Molodezhny».
.
Currently there are five amusement rides and various playgrounds for children on the territory of the City Garden. On the central alley the park guests are greeted by busts of outstanding figures of science and art — A. Pushkin, L. Tolstoy, D. Mendeleev, N. Chernyshevsky and others.
On the main stage of the park there are constantly held concert and entertainment programs organized by the creative teams of the city palaces of culture. In the back of the park there is a fountain. In the City Garden there are mass graves with monuments, to which flowers are laid in memory of the fallen liberators of the city.
A lot of difficulties have accumulated, time and funds are required to really breathe new life into the City Garden, to restore the monument of landscape architecture. Besides, the City Garden is also needed because in Mariupol there is not a single street that would be provided only for pedestrians.