UKRDOUG Castle Tours - Maryinsky Palace Multi-Cache
UKRDOUG Castle Tours - Maryinsky Palace
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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(If there are many muggles, please do not go for the cache. I will accept a picture of the knot-hole as proof of find. Better to search in the evening or early morning).
Enjoy this stroll through Maryinsky Park to the royal palace of the czars.
WARNING: After snow melt or heavy rain, you may have to get your feet wet to get this cache (or at least a little muddy).
Stage One (Friendship Arch)
Park your car at GC starting coordinates.
A = number of people in both monuments under the arch
Stage Two (Water Museum)
Go to N50 27.((14*A)+7) E030 31.887
B = Year first centralized water supply in Kyiv was completed
Stage Three (Paton Bridge)
Go to N50 27.((11*A)+8) E030 32.(B-1802)
C = Year Paton Bridge was built (not repaired)
Stage Four (Lookout Point)
Stage Four was destroyed by the former Russian puppet/Ukrainian dictator Viktor Yanukovych so that he could build his private helicopter pad. So I have posted the final coordinates in the hint. You can still go to what is left of the lookout by calculating the coordinates below.
Go to N50 26.(C-996) E030 32.((C-B)+(30*A) +13)
Stage Five (Maryinsky Palace)
Enjoy the palace around 100 meters SW
Stage Six (Cache)
See hint for final coordinates. You may need help as the cache is 2 meters up in a tree. So bring a friend. Please place the cache back exactly as you find it so that it remains camouflaged with the cover of the cache facing out.
Khreschaty Park - Your walk begins in what was once the westernmost section of Maryinsky Park, the park of the Russian Tsars. In 1881 this section was given over to the merchants of Kyiv and was called Merchants Garden. The following year the Merchants Assembly Hall (the building below the Friendship Arch) was built. During the Soviet period it was given to the Young Pioneer (Soviet youth movement) and the park was renamed Pioneer Park. Today the Merchants Assembly Hall serves as the National Philharmonic. The Friendship Arch was built during the Soviet period and represents the unification of Russia and Ukraine. The monument centered below the arch is a Russian and Ukrainian worker holding up the Soviet Order of Friendship of Peoples. The other monument is a cross-section of Ukrainian people. Also in this park is the Water Museum built from the ruins of one of the original water towers.
Paton Bridge - Originally Khreschaty Park was part of Maryinsky Park, but between 1910 - 1911 a gully was dug through the mountain to connect the city better with the river port. The bridge is affectionately known to the locals as the "Kissing Bridge" and is adorned with locks that signify the unbreakable vows made between newlywed couples.
Maryinsky Park - This grand park once stretched from today's Khreschaty Park to modern Maryinsky Park which only encompasses the region east of the palace. The funds for the building of this park were provided by the Empress Maria Alexandrovna after the reconstruction of the palace in 1870. After Paton Bridge comes "Dynamo" Stadium which was built in 1936 for the Dynamo Kyiv football franchise. It was originally a lake that was later drained and turned into an amusement park called the Chateau de Fleurs (Castle of Flowers). The park west of the palace had trees that framed views of the majestic churches of Ukraine. The area east of the palace, which is all that is still called Maryinsky Park, was once a military training ground and later served as a military burial plot. General Nikolai Vatutin, who liberated Kyiv from the German Nazi forces, was buried here and a granite statue stands over his grave.
Maryinsky Palace - Before 1744 there was no royal residence in Kyiv. The Empress Elizabeth Petrovna would visit Kyiv often as a place to rendezvous with her Moscow businessman lover. At first the Tsarina stayed in the home of the Kyiv-Pechersk Archimandrites, but that soon proved inefficient (it is hard to maintain an affair in the home of the highest religious official). So she had a royal palace built in 1752 in the same style as the famous St. Petersburg architect Bartholomew Rastrelli. Originally the first floor was made of stone and the second resident floor was made of wood. Catherine II was the first ruling monarch to stay in the palace in 1787. She stayed so long that rumors began to spread that she was planning on moving the royal capital back to Kyiv. In 1819 the palace burned down and the first floor was converted into a mineral water spa. The tsars again restored the royal palace in 1870 under the supervision of Empress Maria Alexandrovna. The last monarch to stay in the palace was Empress Maria Fedorovna, the mother of the last monarch Nikolai II.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
2 zrgref hc va gerr xabg ng A 50 26.739 R 030 32.507