Japan's creepiest park: 800 stone statues found in an abandoned recreation park

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Welcome to the shivering Japanese village. Among the park overgrown with tall grass sit no less than 800 statues carved from stone. Each statue is a completely separate person, with their own clothes, facial features that are not similar to others, and all of them, as if alive, seem to be watching you. “I had the complete feeling that I had accidentally found myself in some kind of forbidden zone. It was simply amazing,” wrote a photographer who captured stone idols about his feelings.

Japanese photographer Ken Okey (Ken Ohki), who publishes his work under the pen name Yukison, was traveling around Toyama Prefecture when he unexpectedly found a park filled with stone statues. The park is located near the city of Osawano in the village of Fureai Sekibutsu no Sato, whose name literally translates as "a village where you can find Buddhist statues." It was in this village that the photographer was told about the history of this place.

At some point, it may even seem that this is a whole settlement of real people who turned into stone after the gorgon Medusa walked here, but the reality, of course, is actually more prosaic. All of these statues were created on the initiative of local manager Mutsuo Furukawa, who back in 1989 paid a decent amount of almost $ 53 million to a Chinese sculptor.

The sculptor has carved over 800 statues, each with its own unique appearance. Most are ordinary people sitting on stone pedestals, and most likely, these are indeed people who once lived here, whom Furukawa personally knew. Some sit straight, like on a chair, others sit with their legs tucked under them, according to Japanese tradition. Some statues are mythological in nature - human figures with the heads of birds or animals. Large numbers of stone Buddhist monks seem to be engaged in conversation. There are also statues of Buddha and Mutsuo Furukawa himself. Furukawa hoped that in this way he would be able to leave behind an eternal memory. Well, at least in this he was not mistaken - the statues are still in good condition today, even though the park remains largely without visitors.

Although I must admit that after the photographer Yukison published his photos from this park, much more tourists began to visit here. In some places, the park is overgrown so much that because of the tall grass, only the heads of the statues can be seen. And the sensations of staying in this place are also far from the sensations of ordinary tourist attractions. The park was conceived as a place where people could relax. However, in reality, few people would want to be here alone or after dark. "It always felt like someone was starting to move behind your back," Yukison wrote about his impressions. " That is why it is simply uncomfortable to stay in this park for a long time - the photographer, according to him, literally fled from there without looking back.

An equally gloomy feeling is left by an art installation by a Finnish artist, which he placed along one of the highways - passing drivers often see real zombie apocalypsestepping on them from the side of the fields.