The smell of begonias fills the Grand Place and from the balcony of the building that houses the mayor can distinguish the patterns formed by the mixture of colors: the traditional flower carpet in Brussels pays tribute this year to the 50 years of Turkish immigration Belgium.
The biennial event opens tomorrow in the main square in the Belgian capital and local authorities expect to receive at least one hundred thousand visitors to its closing on Sunday, explained NOTIMEX event spokeswoman, Martha Meeze.
Carefully spread over an area of 75 meters long and 25 meters wide, the 750,000 begonias from the Belgian region of Flanders this year create geometric shapes inspired by the famous kilims, a type of Persian rug produced in the region of Anatolia, in Turkey.
To achieve the effect, 120 volunteers took gardeners dumps four hours yesterday on the image created by the Belgian designer Mark Schautteet and reproduced in actual size on a micro-perforated plastic that serves as a model for the carpet.
The plastic is still on the floor on a thin layer of sand, a ruse that allows keeping live plants throughout the event, in midsummer. Before placing the flowers, volunteers fill the spaces between the floral lawn.
The work is monumental: each square meter of land and each carries 300 begonias heatwave grass must be wet to not retreat, but excessive moisture jeopardize flowers.
The carpet of flowers is a tradition in Belgium, initiated in 1971 with the aim of promoting the Flemish begonias, appreciated for its wide variety of colors.
The initiative achieved its goal because Flanders is today the world's leading producer and flower exports each year more than 30 million of them, mostly for the United States, Japan and European countries.
For this nineteenth edition of the event, plants also decorate for the first time, the city hall of Brussels, which opens its visitors balcony for a panoramic view of the carpet.
In addition, the Grand Place every night plunge into a light show and music specially created for the occasion.
"As the soundtrack of a film, the music tell the story of the epic and imaginary journey of a group of nomads across the plains of Anatolia," said Meeze.
Consistent with the theme of the event, the composer Gregory Dune wanted to use traditional instruments of the Persian region, such as Saz (a kind of lute) and Daf (a kind of tambourine).
Not the first time the Brussels flower carpet was inspired by Turkish culture: in 1998 the work referred to the semi-nomadic tribes from the Northeast.
The Turks began migrating to Belgium in 1964 after the signing of a bilateral agreement to settle a labor shortage in the European country.
The country currently has more than 220,000 residents born in Turkey and its major cities have neighborhoods formed entirely by the community.
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