Raykivtsi Park

Raikovetsky Park is a local monument of landscape art of Ukraine, located in the village of Raykivtsi, Khmelnytsky district, Khmelnytsky Oblast.

This work participates in the "Ukrainian brands in global trends" contest.At first, the village was free. At the end of the XV century, the village was enslaved by Polish nobleman Herbert. It is believed that the modern park was created in this century. In 1847 nobleman Radlovsky married the daughter of nobleman Skibnevsky, whose estate was located 10 km from the village, and the village of Raikivtsi became dependent on Radlovsky.Mrs. Radlovska lived in the village; she had three farms and more than 10 thousand acres of land. One of the farms was located near the park. The so-called "nobleman’s road" ran in the park, along which the lady often walked. Some serfs tended trees and bushes, they lived a kilometer from the location of the park. Also there was a small estate and a farm with rooms where poultry was raised, but all of them were destroyed a long ago. The modern park covers about 1.5 hectares. There are many valuable species of trees growing here: cedar pine, larch, maple - sycamore, maple, various species of lindens and birches, horse chestnut. A tulip tree, rare in Ukraine and known in the village as the "nobleman’s linden", grows in the park. Its flowering occurs in June - July. The age of the "nobleman’s linden" is about two hundred years. The tree does not spread throughout the park, as pollination of its flowers requires insects (with very long proboscis) that live in tropical latitudes. The age of maples is more than a hundred years. This is evidenced by the width of tree trunks. The alley of old linden trees may have been the former nobleman’s road. In the park remained such species of bushes as Ukrainian hawthorn, dog rose, honeysuckle, mackerel, elderberry. History shows that a significant part of the park was an orchard and a rosary. The location of the park area allowed creation of artificial ponds. Older people talked about springs, which are still related to the taste of water.There are many species of birds - hairy owls, sparrows, tits, starlings, woodpeckers, jays, crows, rooks, jackdaws, pigeons, flycatchers, nightingales, starfish, as well as animals - rodents, squirrels, martens, and ferrets.