Kurtuluş Parkı

Kurtuluş Park is an 86,000 square metre park between Cebeci and Kızılay, next to the Kurtuluş station of the Ankaray light rail. The land was expropriated in 1931 and set up as a nursery producing saplings to plant the city; it is the park called the Nursery in Hermann Jansen's 1932 master plan, one of the plan's four parks. It became a park between 1961 and 1963, received official park status in 1980 and was declared a first degree natural conservation site in 1994. In 1981 Turkey's first artificial ice rink, the Atatürk Ice Skating and Sports Facilities, opened inside the park. Holm oaks rare in Ankara, broad lawns and picnic grounds, a children's playground, a marriage hall and Selim Turan's Sarı Kız sculpture of 1993 are all within the park.