A Cleveland Gem (Part Two)

Yesterday I wrote about Cleveland's Cultural Gardens.  Now I will cross the boulevard and visit the gardens on the other side of the parkway as I walk back to my car.

The Russian Garden (2018) is still a work in progress, but so far it is quite disappointing.  Think of all the great writers and composers who came from Russia...  Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, just to name a few.  All that the garden has at this point is a bust of the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.

The Serbian Garden (2008) has a path lined with busts of famous Serbs.  The best known to people in the U.S. is Nikola Tesla.  

There is also an image of the country's patron saint, St. Sava.

The rather forlorn Romanian Garden (1967) contains only a bronze statue of George Enescu, the country's most famous composer.  Plans are underway for further development of the garden.

 

The African American Garden (2016) is still under construction.  The garden climbs the hillside.

At the top of the hill is a structure which represents the slave trade and the castles along the west coast of Africa from which captives were shipped to the New World.  

The walls of polished black granite represent the apprehension the slaves must have felt as they passed through the corridors of the castles, and the sandstone portal is called the "Doorway of No Return".

The Ukrainian Garden (1940) contains statues and busts of famous people.  The central statue is of a 19th century poet, feminist, and political activist who used the pseudonym of Lesya Ukrainka because the Russian Empire prohibited publications in the Ukrainian language.

The Latvian Garden (2006) contains sculptures carved from granite boulders from Latvia.  The archway represents the passage of immigrants from Latvia to the United States.

The Estonian Garden (1966) centers around an abstract carving done by architect Herk Visnapuu, a graduate of Ohio's Oberlin College.  The flame represents the Estonians' desire for independence at a time when it was still a part of the Soviet Union.  The inscription from an Estonian poem says, "The time will come when all torches will burst into flame at both ends."

The Finnish Garden (1958) includes a bust of one of my favorite composers, Jean Sibelius.

As you enter the India Garden (2005) you will notice that the stones of the walkway are inscribed with the word "Welcome" in fifteen of India's major languages.

The most prominent feature is a large statue of Mahatma Gandhi who led the non-violent struggle for India's independence from Britain.

Finally, the Lebanese Garden, which, although it was approved in 2012, is still in its early stages.  Young cedar trees will eventually form a grove.  Lebanon has been famous for its cedar forests since Biblical times.

That completes my tour of the Cultural Gardens.  Looking at its website, I see that there were a few gardens which I missed, but I covered most of them.   The gardens are an often overlooked gem of Cleveland.  You must really get out of your car and explore them on foot to truly appreciate them.