Tarusa City Garden is located in the historical center of the city. Here you can walk along the Embankment of the Oka River, which begins near the Peter and Paul Cathedral and stretches for one hundred and thirty meters to the Oka cafe. There are monuments to Marina Tsvetaeva, Bella Akhmadulina and Konstantin Paustovsky on the embankment.
The monument to Marina Tsvetaeva is installed near the Peter and Paul Cathedral. She was saying: "Here in France, my shadow will not remain. Tarusa, Koktebel, and the Czech villages are the places of my soul." The Tsvetaev family did a lot to make Tarusa a place of attraction for creative people, so grateful residents of Tarusa erected a monument to the great poet of the Silver Age in the City Garden.
The monument to Marina Tsvetaeva in Tarusa was erected on October 13, 2006. The initiator was the architect Boris Messerer, who lived in Tarusa for many years. He turned to the Ossetian sculptor Vladimir Soskiev, who was able to implement his idea. A rowan tree was planted next to the monument, which is a symbol of Tsvetaeva`s creativity:
"With a red brush
The rowan tree lit up.
Leaves were falling.
I was born.
I still do
I want to gnaw
Hot mountain ash
A bitter brush."
These and many other poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, as well as their own, were recited by the poets on the opening day of the monument to Marina Tsvetaeva in Tarusa. People present at the opening said that while reading poetry, a rainbow rose over the Oka river.
Bella Akhmadulina, wife of architect Boris Messerer, also recited poetry at the opening of the monument to Marina Tsvetaeva. She also loved Tarusa and visited often this town. Bella Akhmadulina died in 2010, and in 2013 a monument was erected to her in the Tarusa City Garden, opposite the monument to Marina Tsvetaeva. She stands straight as a string, her hands clasped behind her back. That`s how she recited her poetry.
A little further on the embankment behind the Oka Cafe there is a monument to Konstantin Paustovsky, who was also one of the most famous residents of Tarusa. He was born in 1892 in Moscow, but in the 1950s he built a house in Tarusa and lived here most of the time. The Paustovsky Museum is open in his house. He died in 1968 in Moscow, but according to his will he was buried at the Tarusa city cemetery.
