Belaya Besedka (White Garden House)

In 1908-1909 on the occasion of 200 years of the Battle of Poltava there was built Belaya Besedka. It is an original monument – eight columns, erected in the form of semi-circumference, support the laced coronal looking like horseshoe at the top. On the coronal there is the inscription, presenting the citation from Natalka Poltavka by I. P. Kotliarevsky: “Where there is harmony in family, peace and silence, people are happy there and it is the blissful place”. The inscription inspires the other title of bower – “Roundhouse of Friendship of Nations”. Construction of the colonnade commemorated the place of podol bastion of Poltava fortress.

There is the legend that the horse of Peter the Great lost its horseshoe and local blacksmith skilfully horseshoed the horse, for what the tsar generously awarded him. It is the place of Ivanova Gora, from which there opens the wonderful city view: view of Krestovozdvizhensky Monastery, Vorskla, Podol. At the square near the bower there is St. Uspensky Cathedral with the bell tower, memorial estate of Kotliarevsky, where the most famous street of the city (Oktiabrskaia) begins from.