Eugene Levin | Panorama Media Group
People always strive to go to a forest, seashore, river or lake. There, they feel a surge of energy.
It is not for nothing that they say it is best to relax in the bosom of nature; the surrounding landscape can have a calming effect on our mental, emotional and physical state. Contemplation of the beauty of nature stimulates vitality and calms the nervous system.
In the first part of our publication, we discussed the most popular city parks in Los Angeles for the Russian-speaking community. Today we will discuss the role parks play in people’s lives and how important they are to us. While preparing this material, our journalists met with people of different ages who came to the United States from the former Soviet Union at different times.
Our first meeting took place in Woodley Park, located in the San Fernando Valley.
Former Muscovites Larisa and her husband Sergey have lived in Encino for over 15 years, where they moved from Texas. Sergey has been retired for several years and tries to spend as much time as possible in nature. According to Larisa, their friends showed them Woodley Park and the Japanese Garden located there, which the Journal of Japanese Gardening has ranked 10th out of 300 public Japanese gardens in the United States.
The original goal of the Japanese Garden in Woodley Park was to demonstrate the positive use of reclaimed water in such a delicate environment as a Japanese garden. As Sergey discovered, the ponds and irrigation system located there use reclaimed water from a nearby water recycling plant.
Since Sergei was involved in water purification as part of his career, the idea of creating a “water and aroma garden” next to a water processing plant — this is how the name of this place is translated from Japanese — incited great interest in him.
Larisa said that the atmosphere of the Japanese Garden and its proximity to their home — about 10 minutes’ drive, with convenient parking — contribute to the fact that she and her husband visit Woodley Park and its “garden of water and aroma” several times a week, throughout the year.
When they come to the park, they do not leave the boundaries of the city in which they live, but at the same time they get into nature and relieve accumulated irritability. The combination of colors, sounds and smells creates a harmony of emotions that arise when visiting Woodley Park and especially the Japanese Garden, where a special atmosphere reigns.
For them, this place became memorable also due to a very important event in the life of their family; here, in the Japanese Garden, their daughter’s wedding ceremony took place, where guests from different states of our country were present. Many attending residents of LA did not know about the existence of the “garden of water and aroma” and first found themselves in the Japanese Garden only after attending the wedding ceremony of Sergey and Larisa’s daughter.
Over the weekend, our correspondent met Sasha and Zoya in Coldwater Canyon Park, where they were walking with their five-year-old son, Jeffrey. Their little Jeff was seriously ill at the age of two, and in addition to good medical care and the necessary medications, he needed to spend a lot of time outdoors.
It was Coldwater Canyon Park that turned out to be a kind of sanatorium for this young family, where their son improved his health during walks. The park is always full of children, with whom Jeff met and played, which was also important for him, since due to his health he could not attend kindergarten.
When Zoya was busy at work and Sasha was away on business trips, Jeff was walked in the park by his grandmother — Zoya’s mother, who had moved to LA from New York specifically to help; she has since returned to her home on the East Coast.
Jeff recovered, as his mother says, thanks to American medicine and almost daily long-hour walks in Coldwater Canyon Park. Of course, this park became not only their favorite, but also a place that played a vital role in the life of their son and the whole family. Sasha says that among friends, they call this city park “the tract of a cold river.”
People have always been drawn to parks. It is unlikely that you will find a Los Angeles resident who would not appreciate walks in the fresh air surrounded by amazing beauty. We must not forget that nature is the original habitat of man.
A park is first and foremost about people and for people. In a country that is new to us, we have our own favorite places, and naturally, for these two immigrant families in America, given their fates, parks are among them.
As Zoya said when she said goodbye to us: “Thank you, park. Thank you for what you’ve done for us.”
This story was produced by American Community Media in collaboration with the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS) at UCLA as part of the Greening American Cities initiative supported by the Bezos Earth Fund. Read more stories like this by visiting the Greening Communities homepage.
