Delgosha garden : A place to relax and think

Garden in the Iranian mind is like a piece of heaven on the earth. If you have lived in the hot deserts of Iran you would understand what I say. When the temperature of the day crosses more than 40 degrees, finding a shadow is a really valuable thing. So finding a group of trees in this hot land is exactly like a piece of paradise on earth.

History of Delgosha garden

Delgosha garden is another piece of paradise on earth. The history of the establishment of Delgosha garden goes back to the Sassanid era.
On the north east of Shiraz, in south of saddieh or tomb of Saadi in a very cozy and silent place there is a garden. The name of this garden is “Delgosha” which means a place to remove sadness and get happiness (while visiting the garden). In old times people who wanted recreation visited this garden and in glimpse they found happiness and forgot sadness. Actually this garden is so cozy and silent which helps you forget all problems of life and start to find happiness even when you have a big problem. In the hot land of Iran, visiting a garden is a chance , like a bonus from god. Even today, most of the people, especially in hot summers, rush to gardens in suburbs or parks and enjoy the cool weather  to cool down and refresh . Notice the fact that in many places in Iran especially in hot summers the temperature crosses 40 to 45 degrees and on this occasion the best way to escape from hot weather is going to shades and parks and gardens. And Shiraz is located in a very hot corner of deserts. Living in Shiraz in hot summers is hard and because of this you can find several gardens which acted like today's new parks for people in old times. Old fashioned people who lived in Shiraz enjoyed their time visiting gardens and forgot their sadness in the shade of trees and living in flowers and shrubs in very hot summers and late springs.

Unique features of Baghe Delgosha

Like other gardens in Iran, this garden is surrounded by tall and thick walls, actually the real plan of Persian gardens goes back to more than 3000 years ago. In Mesopotamia and Iran, around hot lands of Persia, gardens were a piece of paradise which located on the earth, imagine in this hot part of the earth a piece of land which covered by shades of trees, shrubs and flowers and running rivers and ditches and channels filled by fresh clear water resembled paradise and pieces of heaven on the land. Singing birds and wild animals reminded me of the promised land of heaven in the other world.
Gardens in old times had the role of parks in today's world. As I said before, unlike parks in European countries which are open in public, the gardens in eastern parts of the world are surrounded by thick and tall walls. All gardens have big gates and in corners of jointed walls there are watchtowers which are used to protect the garden against enemies. Iran or old Persia is located in the junction of different continents and cultures. This strategic corner of the world is the arena of bloody wars throughout history. This arena is the place of war between west and east and even enemies from north of Iran invade this land for decades and years. Because of this security concerns in most buildings of Iran, even the gardens you can find watchtowers to defend the buildings and structures against enemies. Today if you do not find this kind of watch towers means that they were destroyed through time and if they are there it means they have symbolic roles in this new era. In the upper parts of Delgosha garden there is a big beautiful and historical building which today is used as a museum and people can find antique pieces of art in that museum. In all gardens of Persia or Iran today you can find a source of water irrigating the trees and shrubs and flowers. In old times most of the trees planted in gardens were fruit trees , in shiraz specially citrus trees, walnuts , pomegranates, almonds, apples and mostly the species which do not need much water. This building which is more or less big enough to serve elite people who owned the garden was a masterpiece of art in old times and in normal times there is a shallow pool in front of the building. This pool is big enough to hold a huge amount of water to help irrigate the garden and freshen the atmosphere around the garden. Because of hot weather in the atmosphere especially in hot summers the water inside the pools are evaporating so fast and to prevent this the pools are shallow enough to prevent over evaporation of precious drops of water gathered from springs or Qanats. In the case of Delgosha garden,  the source of water is an old spring but in other parts and gardens there was a branch of river or Qanat which provided water to irrigate the garden and facilities inside the building which is known as “Kushk”. Actually Qanat is complicated interconnected channels and ditches which makes a spider web of subterranean interconnected tubes and channels which gather subsurface waters and provide fresh water in lower lands and used to irrigate farms and gardens or used as normal usage in life as hygienic matters. Qanats had a unique role in providing fresh water in old times and acted as the heart of the society in irrigating lands and providing water for people. This passive gathering and providing water system does not need energy and gathers the water without need of energy. This interesting system unfortunately suffered a lot in last 100 years by providing deep wells and bringing water from deep using huge amount of electric or fossil energy but fortunately recently people understanding the role of old fashion Qanats they start to rebuild the Qanats and using this free fresh water for ordinary uses or irrigating trees and farms.
One of the unique features of Delgosha garden is this point which instead of Qanats they used water of eye and spring and this water runes to the ditches which irrigating every remote corner of garden and this water which runs through the ditches irrigate plants and at the end runes as the sewage water outside the garden. This water will irrigate lower lands of gardens and people in lower lands use this water to irrigate their own small gardens or use in their normal life for cleaning, washing and even hygienic matters. Because other people use this water, contaminating water in old times was a great sin and had penalties and if somebody did this act there was a big punishment waiting for him. One of the other unique features of Delgosha garden is its coziness and tranquility which make it a place for relaxing and forgetting problems in life and recreating life in the best way.
As mentioned above in each garden there is a building which was used in old times to service elite people and because of this, these buildings were artistic masterpieces. You can find beautiful fine arts like paintings, tile working, brick working, and even statues and stones on the walls. These kind of buildings or kooshkes are so beautiful which resemble palaces in 1001 night’s stories. In Delgosha garden this kooshk changed to a museum years ago and by small payment you can find an interesting collection of fine art of Iran and Persian and you can enjoy the view of second floor of building and above, and opportunity which you cannot find if you do not stay in high above the garden.
Today because of modernization and changing the streets and roads, the size of the garden has changed too. Actually the size of the garden decreased and is smaller than old and historical times. But even though the size is smaller than before, it does not decrease the value of the garden and its scenic beauties itself, it never decreases the coziness and tranquility of the unique features of Delgosha garden in Shiraz and Fars province in Iran.

 
Important points for visitors of Delgosha Garden

People of Shiraz are happy people and they take life easy, they spend a lot for happiness and even in normal days they spend their time walking in Delgosha garden and other gardens but Delgosha garden has its own place in their heart and mind and in holidays you can find thousands of Shiraz people in Delgosha garden walking in there, so finding a parking place in the middle of traffic jam is mind blowing and hard enough to push you back and provoke you to forget visiting this beautiful place.
Most of the narrow streets and roads in shiraz are full of cars and shiraz has its own problems in traffic jam in normal days, in holidays and end of the week this problem shows itself more and it is better you program your visiting if you are visiting Iran and shiraz and especially Delgosha garden itself. These are definitely important points for visitors of Delgosha garden. If you are a foreigner and you want to visit Delgosha garden in future you can ask our staff on sanapersian site and ask them to modify your program before visiting Iran. Sana Persian tour and travel service provider group is looking forward to visit you in Iran and Shiraz to show you the beauties of gardens in Shiraz. Until then.