Glass Stream7 photos

The Glass Stream

(now more commonly referred to as the Mirror Stream)

According to one version, based on the memories of former party officials from the Kharkov Regional Committee, the story behind the creation of this fountain and gazebo is linked to an event in the late 1940s. At that time, Nikita Khrushchev, who was then the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, visited Kharkov. In the office of Viktor Churaev, the head of the Kharkov Regional Committee (the committee’s headquarters were located at 1 Mironositskaya Street at that time), Khrushchev looked out the window and was clearly not impressed by the appearance of the trolleybus park below. The future leader of the Soviet state criticized the Kharkov communists for the unsightly conditions in the area surrounding the committee building. As a result of this conversation, the regional authorities decided to create a square with a fountain in that location.

In place of the trolleybus park, a “Victory Square” was established through public construction efforts in 1946–1947. The square included a swimming pool and a fountain-gazebo named “The Glass Stream.” The overall design of the square and fountain was created by architects A. M. Kasyanov, V. I. Korzh, and A. S. Mayak. Next to the fountain-gazebo, a swimming pool was built; initially, it was enclosed by a simple brick fence, but in the 1970s, this was replaced with a granite barrier. In 1958, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Leninist Youth League, a walkway dedicated to heroic league members was opened within the square.

Yuri Gurovoy, who served as the chairman of the Kharkov City Council from 1969 to 1976, provided the following information about the “Glass Stream” fountain-gazebo:
“If the people of Kharkov still remember what the ‘Victory Square’ was originally called—because that’s how we are accustomed to referring to it today—the original name for this gazebo and its glass stream feature was ‘Bakhchichuraevskaya Stream,’ named after the First Secretary of the regional party committee at the time.”

Source: Old Kharkov