An Art Lover's Guide To Landscape Alley In Kiev

An alley created in 1980 by the architect Abraham Miletsky was meant to be a viewing point for the Dnieper River and Podol district. But, with the passage of time, its curbs and squares were filled with modern masterpieces, thus transforming the alley into an open air museum.

Landscape Alley is hiding behind tall buildings of Kiev’s city centre and connects the historic part of Kiev, the Lvivska Ploscha (Square). The real fame came to the place, one of the most pleasant strolling spots in Kiev, in 2009, when it was equipped with a children’s park, stylish mosaics and majestic sculpture of a cat. Crowds of people headed to the alley to marvel at the works of art and take pictures with incredible sculptures. For example, the length of the multi-colour Centipede Kitten, locals’ favourite monument, is 30 meters (100 feet). This is a funny and photogenic sculpture, which also serves as a bench, located inside the toothy mouth of a cat.

It was Konstantin Skretutskiy who developed the largest amount of works in Landscape Alley. The artist created these unique sculptures, as a wonderful mosaic fountain where streams of water emerge from the coloured heads of zebras and a fantastic slide in the form of a smiling cat. The whole playground was designed in the form of characters of the tale Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Every detail of it deserves attention.

At the end of the Landscape, there’s another children’s playground, one where you can find several interesting art objects. In particular, one can see two colourful sparrows with huge eyes decorated with a mosaic style; there is also a park sculpture of a stork and a frog. Walking the alley, you can see a gallery of children’s mosaic portraits of different races, four colourful boy statues, who together create a kind of a fountain, and much more. With bright colours and intricate installations, the architects of the alley managed to attract not only kids but adults as well. In 2012, the place received the status of a complex nature monument of local importance.

A kind of extension of the unusual sculptures was another project called Kiev Fashion Park, the initiator of which was the co-founder of the Ukrainian Fashion Week. These functional sculptures kindly contributed to the alley’s beautiful architecture, introducing a number of such art objects as designer benches. In the summertime, Landscape Alley is especially crowded. It is also a picture-perfect spot for a picnic, a perfect place for rest from the bustling city life and a great location to spend a family day. The square offers so much fun, that the feeling of visiting a fairy tale will never leave its visitors.