Uman miracle Uman miracle The world knows many masterpieces of landscape gardening, and takes a lot of courage to pick out one as a unique peal. But speaking about the Sofiyvka we can say with certainty that it. undoubtedly ranks high among them. Few works of langscape architecture can rival it in the amount of legends and romantic stories witch are concealed in its shady alles, mysterious grottos, in formidable heaps of rocks. They unfold to those who know how to look and to listen. Now you understand why we invite you to roam though the Sofiyvka alles, path and glades namely in autum. It always hurst to ruin a beautiful legend, but history is based upon the truth. So we, telling about the Sofiyivka, have to cut away some fairy images with a historical scalpel. And first all, in the legend on the park’s foundation. This is a Romantic story. Count Stanislaw Potocki, one of the richest magnates, fell in love with a beautiful Greek girl, Sofia. The world had not seen such a beauty.Thus,V.Ivaschenko, the author of the historical essay on the Tsarina’s Gaarden (as the Sofiyivka was call from 1836)wrote:Sofia was a marvel of a beauty ;her large black eyes were filled with sorrow and passion, her movements were charming beyond exession, her lips were submissive and entreating…” The idea to build a park belonged to Sofia herself. It was conceived during her visit to Radziwill’s Arcadia Park in the Town of Neborow near Warsaw in Juli 1795 during the removal from Hamburg to Uman. On Juli 18, Sofia wrote to Stanislaw Potocki: „After dinner we went to see thr Arcadia. It’s hard to imagine anything more romantic and beautiful.You know Arkadia, but you saw it ten years ago. Imagine how young threes can grow for ten years and how much has been done here to make this place even better…I like the Arkadia madly;there is no species of flowers and exotic plants which have not been there. Strolling throught the Arkadia gardens I felt than at the height of summer I lived throught spring again, and every tree seemed to tell me:I am at home here!

The Arkadia reminds me very much of the Crimea;you know there with your means withing two years you could create an even more beautiful Arkadia, because there is no need for artificial afforestation there. Indeed, my dear friend, shall we have a hamlet in the Crimea?..” In the next letter dated Juli 19, she supplemented her request with a wish:”If we have a manor in the Crimea you should order organs to be installed there just like at Radziwill’s in the Arkadia…” But Sofia did know the actual state of Potocki’s financial position. Josephine, Potocki’s first wife, with her stewards had brought the estate almost to bankruptcy. So, Count couldn’t acquire an estate in the Crimea. But not without reason old saying states: love conquers all. Love inspired him to attempt a great feat.He collected money and in a year in Uman, amidst steppes and gullies parched by the sun, amid chaotic heaps of rocks, a park was being laid out in the romantic style and based on ancient Greek mythology. The Count decidedto recreate a corner of Hellas and to present it to his beloved wife, so that it would remind her of the mountains and woods, clear books and transparent lakes of her native land.