In 2017, 90 years have passed since the creation of one of the oldest green objects on the right bank of Kremenchug – the Garden of the Club named after. Kotlov (KVSZ Park of Culture and Leisure, now Kryukovskiy Park).
In the spring of 1927, after the construction of the club. Kotlov, which was located in the garden, which belonged until 1917 to Archpriest Fyodor Arkhangelsky, at the corner of Poselyanskaya (after the renaming of Academician Gerasimovich) and K. Liebknecht (modern Ivan Prikhodko) streets, the Kryukov railway workers decided to create an additional place for cultural events in the summer . Alleys are cut in the garden, a platform is arranged, benches are installed. In 1937, a summer reading room was built, a new dance floor, a stage, the central entrance was decorated with columns, and a good fence was installed.
In 1938, the garden was reconstructed, for which 400 thousand rubles were allocated. New wide straight alleys strewn with small brick rubble were laid out, 200 new comfortable benches were installed. Two fountains were built on the central alley. At the central entrance, the fountain’s pool was rectangular in shape and was decorated with a sports-themed plaster sculpture “Girl with an oar”; the second fountain – with a rounded pool and a sculpture “Fungus”. Electric lighting was arranged like the illumination of Kyiv Khreshchatyk; flower beds were planned, up to 3 thousand trees and bushes were planted, a summer indoor theater was built.
During the German occupation of 1941-1943 almost everything was destroyed. Tree plantations were used for heating. On the territory of the park, German soldiers carried out the burial of their dead and dead. During the retreat, the ashes were dug up from the graves and carried away with them. The abandoned grave pits were reused for burials, but already of Soviet soldiers. So, on November 18, 1943, senior lieutenant Baziev I.M. was buried there, on February 17, 1944, major of the medical service Ksendzov E.M., as well as underground members Chornobaba D.S., Tretyak, Kravchenko.
After the war, already in 1946, during Sundays, new tree plantations appeared on the territory of the park, which at that time was an almost bare area, to the right of the main entrance.
photo – Central alley of the park KVSZ 1949
photo – Summer cinema in Kryukov, KVSZ park
In March 1949, the project for the redevelopment of the park, developed by the Kharkov Regional Design Bureau, was approved. According to him, by order of the chairman of the Kryukovsky District Council of Workers’ Deputies, in April 1950, the graves were transferred to the Kryukovsky cemetery. Particularly active work on the reconstruction of the park was carried out in the fifties of the twentieth century.
How much labor, love, enthusiasm the factory workers have invested in the development of their fleet! So, on one Sunday, more than a hundred trees were planted. A capital fence was built with a front decoration of the main entrance, on the arch of which there was a sign “Park of Culture and Leisure of KVSZ”. Along the central alley, monuments to Lenin and Stalin were erected in the style and in accordance with the requirements of that time. Later, only the sculpture of Lenin remained, which was moved to the beginning of the alley. Further along the axis, fountains were restored, and rectangular flower beds were arranged. Cannes, petunias, and asters were planted on the latter.
On the fountain with a rectangular pool, plaster sculptures were replaced. In the mid-1950s, it was a sculpture of a boy holding a large fish upright. On the sides of the pool were white vases with flowers, similar ones stood at the crossroads of all the alleys. In the sixties of the twentieth century, the sculpture was changed again – for two boys who played with water jets. The central alley was crossed perpendicularly by two side alleys. They were all surrounded by clipped hedges. In niches – “pockets” installed garden sofas for relaxation.
The summer cinema, built in 1957, closed the perspective of the central alley. A sculptural group “Friendship of Peoples” was installed in front of him.
photo – In the KVSZ park – photo 1663
photo – KVSZ Cultural Park – photo 1632
50-60s of the XX century. – heyday of the park. Families come here for holidays and weekends. Children enjoyed ice cream, cotton candy, which adults bought for them in the buffet, which was located to the right of the main entrance. Here, too, a photographer in a wheelchair offered to “perpetuate the moment,” and few people refused such a service. Have fun on the rides:
“Carousel”,
ferris wheel “Asterisk”,
swing “Boats”,
“Airplanes”
All this was located in the active recreation area, which was located to the left of the central alley. There was also a dance floor with a shell for the orchestra, where young people had fun.
In the right part of the park there was a zone of quiet rest. A summer reading pavilion and a “Chess” site were built here.
From the side of st. Kotlova was a greenhouse, where they grew flower seedlings for flower beds. At the end of the park there was a pond, the water from which was used for irrigation. Over time, it silted up and was covered up. Even before the end of the 70s, the territory of the park was decorated with plaster sculptures “Worker”, “Happy Childhood”, etc.
1983, the factory workers carried out the reconstruction of the park, which was completed in 1983. Almost all the bushes were uprooted, sculptures were removed, fountains were updated in an “industrial” style. But the active life of the park gradually faded away. In the difficult nineties, all the rides were dismantled. Since then, the park has turned into a continuous quiet zone.
In the mature forest stand there are white poplar, heart-leaved linden, Norway maple, common ash, drooping birch, common mountain ash, common robinia, prickly spruce of the “Sizaya”, “Silver”, “Blue” forms, western thuja, Cossack juniper, etc.
Among the bushes:
weeping forsythia,
spirea Vangutta,
common lilac,
common mock orange,
privet ordinary.
This very nice and cozy place was captured by numerous representatives of the avifauna:
tits big and blue,
redstart ordinary and black,
blackbirds,
nuthatch,
woodpeckers small, medium, Syrian,
rooks, crows, etc.
The park has great health, sanitary and aesthetic value for the central historical part of Kryukov and, of course, historical significance for Kremenchug as a whole.
Since 2011 (decision No. 706 of the executive committee of the Kremenchug City Council dated August 19, 2011), the park with an area of 4.9 hectares has been maintained by Kremenchug Improvement Enterprise (before that it was a departmental park of culture and recreation of the Kryukov Carriage Works). Employees of the municipal enterprise made numerous plantations of Scotch pine, Scotch spruce, silver birch, evergreen boxwood, junipers of various species and varieties.
According to the decision of the IV extraordinary session of the City Council of the VII convocation dated February 16, 2016 “On the renaming of the streets of Kremenchuk”, the name of the park was changed – now it is called “Kryukovskiy”. By the decision of the XIII session of the City Council of the VII convocation dated August 30, 2016, a communal institution of culture and recreation “Park Kryukovskiy” was created, which unites Kryukovskiy Park, Heavenly Hundred Square, Yunost Park.
Information from the book of scientists of the Kremenchug Museum of Local Lore Muzychenko N.V., Sokolova I.M. Emerald clothes of Kremenchug: the history of the city in parks and squares. / Under scientific. ed. O.M. Bayrak – Kremenchug LLC “Kremenchug City Printing House”, 2016. – 192 p., 220 ill.