Japanese Garden Opens in Gyula

A Japanese garden was inaugurated in the courtyard of the library in Gyula, SE Hungary on Wednesday. Otaka Masato, Japan's Ambassador to Hungary, described the community space created by a Gyula-based NGO as a link between the two countries.

The Ambassador said that Japan has a long tradition of Japanese gardens, with records dating back to before the dawn of time. Although every garden is different, the essential elements are water, bridges, hills, in other words, the appearance of nature. Here, water is symbolized by pebbles, which thus goes beyond the reproduction of nature," he said.

The Japanese garden in Gyula was the brainchild of the Friends of the Japanese Garden Association, which won almost HUF 20 million forints in an EU tender. The garden, which President László Bartóki hopes will become a community and recreational space, was created in the backyard of the Gyula library.

The garden, designed by Japanese garden expert Zoltán Dani, is accessed through the so-called Torii Gate, a grey gravel path with stone benches and stone lanterns.

At the opening ceremony, Mayor Ernő Görgényi recalled that there are active civil organizations in Gyula, with whom the so-called civil house was renovated; the cultural and community building of the Germans in Gyula, the Máriás House, was renovated; and a bowling alley for disabled people was built on the site of the old small cinema.

A studio and rehearsal rooms for amateur orchestras will soon be set up there. In addition, the Hungarian Solar Physics Foundation is setting up a solar observatory in the town, which will be a center of Hungarian astronomical science and a practical training center for university students," the mayor said.