Forged Figures Park, Iron art park in Donetsk, Ukraine.
Forged Figures Park is a green space in Donetsk displaying hundreds of metal sculptures, including zodiac signs, fairy tale characters, and intricate pavilions. The works are organized across themed sections that create a diverse collection of forged pieces in varying sizes and styles.
The park opened in August 2001 with a forged bouquet of roses and ten sculptures, initiated by blacksmith Viktor Burduk. In 2008 Donetsk was admitted to the Ring of European Cities with Iron Works, and the park marked it with an Alley of Rings. By 2012 it held 220 works.
The park grew out of a gift: in 2001 Viktor Burduk, head of the Donetsk forging firm Gefest, presented the city council with a bouquet of forged roses as a symbol of "Donetsk, city of a million roses". Works made at the annual international blacksmith festival, held since 2005 on the third Sunday of September, stay in the park as gifts to the city. The Alley of Superstitions, added in 2011, gathers figures such as Baba Yaga, the Water Spirit and the Good Shubin.
The park occupies the square by the Donetsk city executive committee at 98 Artema Street, in the Voroshilov district. The main entrance from Universitetska Street is marked by a forged composition of vertical rings. The Alley of Arches has ten five-metre arches with sixteen individual benches between them.
The Mertsalov Palm, a steel-rail palm forged by Alexei Mertsalov of the Yuzivka metallurgical plant, won the Grand Prix at the 1900 Paris International Exposition and appears on the coat of arms of Donetsk Oblast. The park's own palm follows that local forging tradition rather than standing in the park itself.
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