Skaryatinsky Garden

There are many sights in Chistopol that have now become symbols of past eras and the Skaryatinsky Garden, which is over 145 years old, is one of such places. The culture of gardens and parks came to patriarchal Russia during the times of Peter The Great. Chistopol at the time, the largest and most developed county of the Kazan province, could not allocate city funds for the creation of a public garden. Firstly, there wasn't enough funds to even cater to the main streets which were in desperate need of attention and secondly, there was simply no space that could be allocated. Nikolai Skaryatin, the new governor of Kazan first visited Chistopol in 1867 and proposed the idea of improving the city, the idea of a city garden being one of them. In 1872, the city council proposed to name the garden Skaryatinsky, in honour of the Governor. In Soviet times, it was renamed to the Park of Culture and Rest dedicated to Karl Marx. A fun fact: when Boris Pasternak was evacuated to Chistopol in autumn of 1941, his room windows overlooked these gardens.