Foundation for Development of Ukraine and "Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine" Newspaper continue a contest between the readers.
One week ago our newspaper together with the Corporate Foundation for Development of Ukraine announced a contest among the readers. The goal is to create an Internet Museum of Live Architecture, which will be available to anyone in the country and abroad; this will be an original architecture chronicle of Ukraine. The museum displays will include stories about architectural monuments, the pride of the country, so that to preserve them for future generations.
Today we are publishing the first "architectural stories". We received them from Sergey Ostrovskiy, our reader from Zaporozhye City.
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary on the minaret in Kamenets Podolskiy Town
"Everyone who arrives to Kamenets Podolskiy Town is usually shown a local tower, which is really worth being called a pearl of Polesye Area. However, this small nice town has one more construction which is worth attention. This is Petropavlovskiy Roman Catholic Church.
It was built in XIV-XVIII centuries and its main object of interest is the Blessed Virgin Mary Statue placed on a high minaret. The fact is that the church after having been seized by the Turks in the second half of XVII century was converted into a mosque. One of the church areas was covered with earth where the Turks built a minaret. When the invaders left the town they agreed with the Polish authorities that nothing would be changed in the town. As the result we have a statue of the Blessed Virgin Maria on the column, which is a symbol of Islam.
This is a unique phenomenon in the world architecture: the history knows some grand conversions of churches into mosques (for instance Aya Sophia Mosque in Istanbul). However, there is only one Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary put on the minaret and it is in Kamenets-Podolskiy Town".
 
The Popovs’ Mansion in Vasilyevka Village
 
"For some reason many people are sure that one cannot find architectural monuments in a steppe village. However, a grand complex in Vasilyevka Village (Zaporozhskaya Oblast) completely ruins this stereotype. And most tourists traveling through this regional center to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea do not know that there is a unique construction here, the construction which even the capital can be proud of.
In the XIX century, on the lands granted by Yekaterina II the Queen to her secretary Vasiliy Popov, Vasiliy’s grandson, Pavel, built a real castle consisting of a palace, two courtyard houses, two watchtowers and stables. The stables constitute the greatest part of the Popovs’ Mansion: the stables were built in pseudo-Byzantine style on the basis of the sketch designs of Benua, a famous artist. In Europe there is only one similar construction, it is the Kremlin in Moscow.
The Popovs’ Mansion has unique brickwork: for instance in the Watchtower the clearance between bricks is no more than 2mm.
Till recently this monument was in oblivion: there was nothing left from the palace and the rest of the constructions were ruined and collapsed. Now this mansion-house in the steppe Ukraine is under reconstruction".

Source: Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine Newspaper
Date: 02/08/2007