Mellat Park
Mellat Park (Pârk-e Mellat) is a famous park in the capital city of Iran.
Known as the Shahanshahi Park (Imperial park) prior to the revolution of 1979, it is one of the largest recreation areas of the Middle-East in the Iranian capital Tehran. It is a well-kept and beautiful green area at the foot of the Alborz mountains adjacent to the famous Valiasr Avenue in the east, extending to the Parkway (chamran) and Seoul Street to the west. This park (one of c. 800 parks in Tehran) lies south of the Tehran International Trade Fair grounds and Enghelab golf resorts. Mellat Park provides pathways for walking and shade for picnics and relaxation. It provides facilities such as boat rental on the lake, skating lanes, snack bars and coffee shops, and a small bird zoo. There is a horseracing club adjacent to the park and horseracing meetings are held at the Mellat Park. The park has become a popular meeting place among young people and a picnic area for the families. The neighborhood surrounding the park is home to popular coffee shops, fast-food outlets, shopping malls and designer boutiques. Mellat Park is watered by the winter-snow streams coming down from Mt. Tochal close to 4,000 m high.
This park is also the resting ground for one of the locomotive used on the first Persian railway section built during 1886-1888[1]. The number 664 locomotive was built by the Belgian "Ateliers de Tubize" and commissioned on 1887. Nowadays, due to the lack of proper maintenance and the indifference of the Iranian people, Tehran municipality, and the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways, this locomotive remains in a disgraceful state of ruin covered with people's tags, graffiti, and rusts.
Pârk-e Mellat is also the name of several other parks across Iran for example in Ahvaz and Bushehr.