The Gansky Estate
This is Honoré de Balzac, the famous French writer. And this is the Gansky Estate, located in the small Ukrainian village of Verkhivnia in northern Ukraine's Zhytomyr Oblast. They are closely connected.
The Gansky Estate is a unique monument of history, architecture, and park-garden culture of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a two-story imperial style building amid a cozy park. Its building materials were imported from many countries, the jewel of the palace being a luxurious hall with antiquity-themed bas-reliefs.
However, nowadays something has been catching the eye right by its entrance. A memorial plaque reads: “The great French writer Honoré de Balzac lived in this house from 1847–1850.”
In 1832, the already famous author received a letter signed by “Foreigner lady.” This lady was so passionate about his books that the writer replied, and they began a regular correspondence. It eventually came to pass that the letters were written not by any ordinary person, but Countess Evelina Ganska. They first met a year later, in Switzerland. However, that meeting was somewhat spoiled by Evelina's husband, Count Wenceslaus Gansky.
Wenceslaus died, and the lovers no longer had any cause to hide. Their dates in Geneva, Vienna, and Dresden were followed by Balzac's visits to Ukraine. The two ended up getting married and settling in that very estate in Verkhivnia.
Evelina outlived her husband by almost 30 years and is now buried next to him in Paris. An agricultural technical school now exists in what was once their house. Thus, students there are reading Balzac's works precisely where he created them.