University Boulevard is paved with wide, pale stone slabs and shaded by rows of towering, decades-old plane trees that form a continuous, dense canopy overhead. This path began as a grand project in the late nineteenth century, carved through the heart of the city by Russian colonial engineers to connect the old walled districts with the new European administrative quarters. They laid out the street to showcase orderly, imperial geometry, forcing a stark contrast against the tangled, winding alleys of the ancient residential neighborhoods nearby.
Bul'var
park garden