Yuri Gagarin Park (Shoduar Park)

The Yuri Gagarin City Park in Zhytomyr stretches on the banks of the Teteriv River on an area of about 36 hectares. There are fountains, sculptures, unique plants and recreation areas. That is why it is one of the best places for recreation and walks in the city.

The park was founded by Baron Ivan Maximilianovich de Shoduar – a famous philanthropist and researcher, chairman of the Russian Society for the Protection of Animals. In the XIX century, he built a Palace in Zhytomyr, setting around a magnificent park in the Baroque style with marble statues, gazebos and exotic plants.

The park is known for the fact that a rare ginkgo grows here, which is also called the «tree of love» because of the heart-shaped leaf. Ginkgo is a relative of spruce, which grew on earth in the era of dinosaurs. And here you can find plane trees and bear nuts – the only specimens in the Zhytomyr region.

Earlier in the park. Yuri Gagarin grew about 80 species of trees and shrubs brought from North America, India, Europe and China. Among them were unique plants: bunduk, Manchurian pyramidal walnut and mountain oak, red-leaved beech, Amur velvet, thuja oriental, gladiolus.

At the entrance to the city park of Zhytomyr you were greeted by a white colonnade in the Tuscan style. Its peculiarity is that it has an odd number of columns. Nearby, there are observation decks with a magnificent view of the river Teteriv. On the headlands you will be greeted by a statue of the goddess Artemis, which was installed during the reign of Baron Shoduar. Near the playground, there is a gallery of sculptures from fairy tales.

One of the most interesting monuments is the count’s granite coincidences, created in 1912, and the snow-white gazebo, built in 1953, which is one of the symbols of Zhytomyr. And the most picturesque place of the park is a suspended pedestrian town across the river Teteriv with a length of 350 m.