Central Park of Culture and Leisure

The Central Park of Culture and Leisure serves as the true visiting card of Grigoriopol — the city’s most beloved public space and one of the principal gathering places for residents throughout the year. The park regularly hosts festive events, concerts and field registration of marriages, making it a venue where the social and cultural life of the community comes most vividly to life.

In 2005, a memorial sign was installed in the park to honor the founding of Grigoriopol — a granite stone bearing an informational slab that records not only the precise date of the city’s establishment but also fascinating details of the founding ceremony itself. History has preserved this event with unusual clarity: on July 25, 1792, a pier near the banks of the Dniester accommodated approximately two dozen ships bringing eminent guests who had arrived by water for the ceremony of laying the corner stone. In place of what is now the central square, a triumphal arch bearing the monogram of Russian Empress Catherine II had been erected, carved and entwined with greenery and flowers in celebration.

It was around this arch that guests and townspeople gathered as the ruler of the Ekaterinoslav Viceroyalty, Vasily Kakhovsky, read aloud the decree of Catherine II on the foundation of Grigoriopol and then laid six symbolic stones marking the city’s beginning: four stones defining the boundaries of the city, one stone for the foundation of the cathedral church, and one for the foundation of the main civic building — the city council. This richly documented founding ceremony, preserved in detail across more than two centuries, gives the park’s memorial sign a particularly meaningful historical resonance.

Location: Central Park, Grigoriopol