Sakura Bridges of Hope

Thirty cherry trees bred by Masatoshi Asari, on their way from Hokkaido to Ukraine. A collaboration of Japanese, British and Ukrainian partners.

THE TREES

Masatoshi Asari, 95, has bred 116 varieties of cherry in Hokkaido, known as the Matsumae cherries. From the 1970s he sent them to China, North and South Korea, England and Poland.

“The cherries were all symbols of peace. If they bloomed in places where people had been tormented because of aggression, I felt that I was fulfilling my responsibilities.”

To China, Korea and Britain the trees went as atonement for Japan’s wartime actions. To Poland and Ukraine they go in solidarity.

Thirty saplings have been grafted in England under a project led by the Japan–Ukraine Sakura Peace Initiative. They are in quarantine at Kalmthout Arboretum in Belgium, and will be Mr Asari’s gift to Ukraine.

UKRAINE’S OWN CHERRY

In Ukraine the cherry, вишня, has a tradition of its own: the orchard by the house in Shevchenko’s poem of 1847, the June harvest, the folk songs. The Kremenets Botanical Garden asked for the trees. It will plant and keep them.

THE PAINTINGS

Ukrainian children painted cherry blossom for Mr Asari: at St Mary’s Ukrainian Schools in west London, and in Kyiv at the Japan–Ukraine Cultural Center at Kyiv Polytechnic, which works through art therapy. He answered them in his own hand.