Sofievka – In Memory Of Great Love Story

What could you do in the name of love to your dearest lady from Step2Love? Heroic actions, flowers to her feet, romantic songs under her window, get her a star from the sky as a gift… But the hero of this story presented to his beloved an amazing fairytale from her motherland that came true in Ukraine!

Count Stanisław Potocky, a famous and rich Polish magnate, had extensive estates in Ukraine. Once at the dance he met a smart and wonderful lady, a daughter of a Greek merchant, Sofia Glyavone-Vitt – and fell madly in love with her. He almost lost his head and even didn’t took into account that both of them were married on that moment.

 

Sofia captivated Count Potocky, and fell in love with him too. Both of them started their divorce processes and during that time did their long correspondence where they could give a freedom to their feelings. In one of her letters Sofia described to her sweetheart her trip to the park “Arcadia” that belonged to her Polish friend, Countess Helena Radziwiłłowa.

“Arcadia” was built in romantic style with some details of Greek mythology, so Greek Sophia was fascinated by it. “It is hard to imagine something better and more romantic than “Arcadia”, wrote Sofia in her letter to Count Potocky. She begged him to buy a village in Crimea and make there such landscape as in “Arcadia”.

Unfortunately, for that time Count Potocky hadn’t enough money: a lot of them he spent to his divorce. And there was a resort of rich Russian grandees in Crimea so the land there was too expensive. So Count couldn’t do anything to fulfill this wish of his beloved.

But one day when Count hunted in his domain near the ancient Ukrainian town of Uman, he suddenly found a scenic place with a little river surrounded by the picturesque landscape. He remembered the wish of his beloved and invited there his old friend, Polish engineer Ludwig Mettsel. They discussed the future landscape park and started their work.

An astonishing landscape park was called “Sofievka”, by the name of sweet Sofia. It was built with mixing different styles and epochs: Count wanted to combine the beauty of Elysian Fields with a charm of native Sofia’s Hellas. Some parts of park are based on Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey”. That’s why many grottoes, stones, fountains and lakes of park are associated with Greek mythology and symbolize some places of ancient Hellas: there are Cretan Labyrinth, Calypso’s Grotto, Venus’ Grotto, Muses’ Terrace, underground river Acheron in park. The statues of of antique Gods, heroes, philosophers and poets – Apollo, Venus, Hermes, Orpheus, Euripides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Homer and others – complete the landscape.

In this way, in the name of his love, Count Potocky founded a wonderful monument to his beautiful Sofia who received such a splendid gift to her birthday. Certainly she couldn’t reject such amazing proposal of love so married him soon and became a Countess Sofia Potocky.

The hundreds of years passed, Count and Countess Potocky died but the wonderful landscape park “Sofievka” in Ukrainan town of Uman preserved till nowadays in memory of their great love.
So Step2Love wish you to find your great love here and always have enough courage and inventiveness to fulfill even unrealizable wishes of your special lady!

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