The Mini Israel Miniature Park owes its birth to Israeli entrepreneur Eiran Gazit. In 1986, Gazit visited the famous "Madurodam" - a miniature city in the Netherlands - and got an idea: something like this should appear in Israel! It took 16 years to realise the idea. At first, the first Palestinian Intifada (Palestinian uprising that lasted from 1987 to 1991) interfered, but by 2002 the park finally appeared.
It was built by a team of designers and architects, which consisted of more than a hundred people, including natives of the former USSR. They created 385 accurate models of the most important objects of Israel - historical, architectural, religious, cultural - and placed them on 3 hectares. The shape of the park resembles a Star of David, each of the six triangles is filled with copies of objects belonging to different districts of Israel.
The models are made of polymer materials and stone with the help of computer calculations and are mostly made in 1:25 scale. The size is not the smallest: skyscrapers are taller than an adult, churches are taller than a child. This scale allows visitors to see all the details, to study the architectural details - the towers of the Azrieli Centre in Tel Aviv, the train station in Haifa, and the Basilica of Borene in Jerusalem. Tourist attraction can be useful - many people, looking at copies of sights, mentally make a list of what else to see in Israel "live".
In this toy country, which is inhabited by 25 thousand seven-centimetre "inhabitants", everything moves. Praying Jews at the Wailing Wall and Muslims on the Temple Mount are bowing, ships are entering the harbour, planes are taxiing to the landing strip, cars and trains are driving, wind turbines are spinning, cranes are working at the construction site. Tourists pass from scene to scene: here in a kibbutz milking cows, here an athlete receives a medal, here works a factory producing frozen juices, and there is a picnic in the forest. In the evening, when it gets dark, small windows in all the building models light up.
Episodes of the centuries-old history of the Jewish people are also recreated: Joshua's victory over five Canaanite armies (in that battle, according to the Old Testament, he stopped the sun and moon in the sky so that night would not fall); Judah Maccabeus' battle with the Greeks who desecrated the Jerusalem Temple; the desperate defence of the fortress of Masada, whose defenders preferred to kill themselves but not surrender to the Romans...
The territory of the park is full of not only movement but also sounds. Israel's famous singer Yoran Gaon sings "Jerusalem, Jerusalem", fans at the stadium support their favourite team, the commander of the guard of honour at the Knesset shouts orders, bells ring in the Abbey of the Assumption on the top of Mount Zion, the famous violinist Isaac Stern gives a violin master class.
Amazed visitors do not immediately believe that all the tiny trees here are alive. But they are - even in the miniature replica of Haifa's Baha'i Gardens, all the trees are real. There are 70,000 plants in the park, 17,000 of which are bonsais grown in the local nursery.
