Park as a gift
This park was created by a man for his beloved woman in the city of Uman' (Ukraine).
The man was Count Stanislaw Potocki, one of the richest men of the eighteenth century. And the woman was his beautiful-wife Sophia.
Sophia was Greek. Because of this the park was conceived by Count Potocki so that there was "a piece of Hellas" in it. He hoped that this would help alleviate Sofia's nostalgia for his homeland.
But why the park? In July 1795, Sophia visited the Countess Gelena Radziwill in the estate near Warsaw. There, Sofia was struck by the beauty of the Arcadia Park.
"I'm in love with Arkady," she wrote to Potocki, "there is not a single species of flowers and exotic plants in the world that would not grow here. Walking around the gardens of the Arcadia, I felt that in the heat of the summer I was experiencing spring again".
Each corner of this park is covered with myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome, connected with legends and romantic stories about Potocki's family life.
For example, Tarpeian Rock. Wikipedia reminds us the legend: "According to early Roman histories, when the Sabine ruler Titus Tatius attacked Rome after the Rape of the Sabines (8th century BC), the Vestal Virgin Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, governor of the citadel on the Capitoline Hill, betrayed the Romans by opening the city gates for Titus Tatius in return for "what the Sabines bore on their arms" (golden bracelets and bejeweled rings). In Book 1 of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, the Sabines "having been accepted into the citadel, [the Sabines] killed her, having been overwhelmed by weapons, and "scuta congesta", meaning, "[they] heaped up shields [on her]". The Sabines crushed her to death with their shields, and her body was buried in the rock that now bears her name. Regardless of whether or not Tarpeia was buried in the rock itself, it is significant that the rock was named for her deceit."
There are a lot of statues in the park. Some of them were scratched or damaged during the Second World War, but were later restored.
I am the author of all photos except Tarpeian Rock. Please be free to use my works if you want :)