Recently, the Rostov-on-Don City Administration and the SFedU Botanical Garden signed a long-term cooperation agreement. The university's botanical scientists will assist the city in landscaping and creating new parks. But a good park is not only trees and shrubs, it is a recreational area with an interesting concept.

To create a design concept, you need a creative visionary. Such professionals are trained by the Academy of Architecture and Arts of the Southern Federal University.

Ekaterina Bakhteeva, urban environment designer and brand strategist, was the author of the Cosmopark concept. For her, this is both a work project, and part of the final master's thesis at the SFedU Academy of Architecture and Arts, and a social mission.

"Mosaic is a significant element of the territorial and tourist brand of our city. Many buildings and the famous Rostov underpasses are decorated with it. And the space theme here in the Northern Residential Area is literally in the air: the streets are named after great astronauts, planets and space objects. The CosmoPark is a place where these two powerful ideas are combined and reinterpreted in a modern interpretation," explained Ekaterina Bakhteeva.

The fate of its implementation may largely depend on the originality and brightness of the design concept of a public space. So, the "Cosmopark" can become the "Third Mile" of a large park along the Temernik River.

Back in 2017, the Temernik Park Autonomous Non-Profit Organization was established in Rostov-on-Don, designed to improve a single pedestrian and bicycle zone along the coastline of the second city river after the Don. As part of the ANO's activities, the first park zones have already been created: the First Mile and Druzhba Park (the second mile).

When the active construction of the Northern Residential area began, the topic of space flight was in the first place in the information space. The entrance street was named after the Cosmonauts, while others were named after the heroes who died during the trials of spaceships: Dobrovolsky, Volkov, Patsaev. Since then, when new streets appear in the area, they try to give them appropriate names: Orbital, Star, Planetary.

The peak of the development of Soviet monumental mosaics also fell in the 1970s and organically absorbed the space theme. You can recall Andrei Vasnetsov's panel "Soviet People — Conquerors of Space" in Kaluga, Fritz Eisel's panel "Space-Earth-Man" in Potsdam or the underpass at the intersection of Bolshaya Sadovaya Street and Kirovsky Prospekt in Rostov-on-Don.

"The accent objects of the future park will be an indoor food court resembling a flying saucer, as well as a second food court with stained glass windows, which simultaneously refer to Soviet aesthetics and modern architecture. The central art objects will be inversion sculptures, balls covered with mosaics, inside which the profiles of famous astronauts are recreated. Their development was carried out with the support of the famous Rostov sculptor and mosaicist Marina Yablonskaya, also a graduate of the SFedU Academy of Architecture and Arts," said Ekaterina Bakhteeva.

It is proposed to place a large—scale mosaic panel based on the paintings of cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk into outer space, and a talented artist who painted views of the universe, on the supporting wall of the park. For example, one of the mosaic fragments in the passage on Sadovaya-Kirovsky is Leonov's painting "A Man in Outer Space." His other paintings also deserved mosaic incarnation in Rostov-on-Don.

"But the Cosmopark is more than just a place to relax. It is a multifunctional natural space at the junction of environmental education, cultural and social practices and commercial use. The Cosmopark is designed to create a sense of place through identity, add individuality and emotionality to the environment, increase the tourist attractiveness of our city and attract investments, including private ones, for the development of the territory, while preserving the existing ecosystem of Temernik," Ekaterina Bakhteeva summed up.

The project of step-by-step creation of a continuous linear park on the banks of the Temernik River with space sketches by Ekaterina entered the top ten strongest projects of the Rostov region and was sent to participate in the federal Forum "Strong Ideas for Modern Times" at the National Center "Russia" in Moscow with the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The forum's experts gave the team feedback that will help bring the project to life.

"We are incredibly proud of such profound and socially significant graduation works as Ekaterina Bakhteeva's project. It is a brilliant confirmation that the SFedU Academy of Architecture and Arts trains not just designers and architects, but real visionary creators who think big and responsibly. We train professionals who, with their projects and real deeds, serve for the benefit of the country and their hometown, transforming its environment, preserving ecology and a unique historical identity. A project like Cosmopark is exactly the contribution to the future of Rostov—on-Don that we strive to provide for our graduates," said Natalia Chemerisova, Director of the SFedU Academy of Architecture and Arts.

The Governor of the Rostov Region, Yuri Slyusar, highly appreciated the authors' desire to combine the past and the future in the design of the Temernik Ecopark. The past is in the form of the Soviet legacy of space exploration and a unique school of monumental mosaics. The future lies in the form of ecological thinking, modern design and a professional approach to the development of the urban environment. If the project goes through all the stages of approval, Rostov residents will have not just another square, but a real point of attraction where they can literally touch the cosmos and feel the connection of times.