Singing Terraces, Horodnie

openas of 2026-10-061900Slobozhanshchyna

Photo: Artur Koichurenko · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Six tiers of brick walls above the Merla — the Kharytonenkos' amphitheatre garden for southern fruit trees, where a quiet voice carries 60 metres.

The Singing Terraces are a terraced amphitheatre garden above the Merla river near the village of Horodnie, one of the landmarks left by the Kharytonenko sugar magnates in the Krasnokutsk area. Sources differ on the client and dates: landmarks.in.ua and Telegraf name Pavlo Kharytonenko, travels.in.ua Ivan, pixelatedrealities.org the family in general; the date of construction ranges from the late 19th to the early 20th century. Six tiers were built on the slope, reinforced with thick brick walls about 4 m high and about 10 m wide; the terraces face south (travels.in.ua, landmarks.in.ua; Telegraf writes of a south-western slope) so that the brick would store heat for heat-loving crops, including dwarf apple trees. According to Telegraf, water for irrigation was pumped from the Merla through pipes in the masonry; discover.ua explains the acoustics by drainage pipes of various diameters in the brick, landmarks.in.ua by wind in the embedded pipes. The amphitheatre shape produces the effect: a quiet voice by the central stairs can be heard 60 metres away (travels.in.ua, Telegraf). In May 2021 municipal workers felled the trees on the terraces, the stairs from the hill have not survived, but the brick walls stamped “AK” still stand (landmarks.in.ua; comment on discover.ua of 19.05.2021). In 2021 the village council together with the NGO Dobra Volia created a digital 3D model of the site (pixelatedrealities.org), and on 4 September 2021 the Slobozhansky orchestra performed on the terraces as part of the project “Kharytonenko Reminiscence” (krkut.gov.ua).

Routes through this landmark

• Merla Estates and the Singing Terraces