Odesa allocated one million for a project to reconstruct a potential park of the imperial past

Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov has ordered to allocate funds from the city's environmental protection fund for the development and implementation of a project for the maintenance and reconstruction of the Savytskyi Park, a park-monument of landscape gardening art of local importance.

The corresponding order was published by the press service of the Odesa municipality.

According to the document, it is about UAH 1 million 480.4 thousand allocated to the Department of Ecology. Savytskyi Park is a park-monument of landscape art of local significance.[1] The facility is located in the city of Odesa in the Dalni Mlyniv district, at 32b Melnytska Street. The park covers an area of 26.7 hectares and was granted the status of a monument in 1972. Until 2015, it was called Leninsky Komsomol.

In 2024, Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov recalled that the mayor's office was considering the idea of creating a park of the "Imperial and Soviet past" there. The idea was considered to move the sculpture of Catherine the Great, which is stored in the Odesa National Art Museum after being dismantled, and Suvorov to the city. And also to gather there all the monuments dedicated to the imperial or Soviet past and figures. The idea of creating such a monument was discussed at meetings of the city council commissions in preparation for the session, but last year the idea was not implemented.

The idea arose against the backdrop of the movement of the Lenin monument, which was previously located on Kulikove Pole in Odesa. The park itself also has a similar monument.

In 1862, a well-known Odesa businessman, Hryhorii Savytskyi-Voyevodskyi, purchased a plot of land in the Dalni Mlyni area to set up a garden. The plot was known as "Savytskyi's Dacha," and a pond and vegetable garden were set up there, where fruits and vegetables were grown and supplied to the city's shops. In addition to the vegetable garden, there was a decorative garden, which cost 5 kopecks to enter. In 1917, Savytskyi left the country, taking all his capital with him.

The decision to turn Savytskyi's garden into a park was made in February 1950. The newly approved park was named the Lenin Komsomol Park of Culture and Recreation. After the collapse of the USSR, the park gradually fell into disrepair.

Кирило Бойко