Bila Tserkva Things to Do

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Passing through a melancholic garden surrounding the colonnade, one can get to the picturesque Ruins. The thing is that at the time the park was being designed, there was a fashion for having specially arranged ruins. The Ruins in the Oleksandriya park also fulfil a more pragmatic function: they are part of the dyke at the Laznevy pond. A waterfall there attracts children who play in the water while their mothers carry on with their unhurried conversations.

Among the trees near the glade stands a white colonnade called Echo. Fourteen Ionic-style ten-metre tall columns stand in a semi-circle within which one can observe curious acoustic effects. A whisper in one place is carried all across to another point 34 metres away. In fact, the colonnade is part of an architectural complex that never got completed. Oleksandra wanted to build a sort of a mausoleum for her uncle, Count Potyomkin, but Catherine the Great’s son, Paul, hated his mother’s favourite and when he ascended the throne he made it very clear that he would not appreciate such a mausoleum built.