"Come in Peace, But Regardless We Will Prevail"

Archeologist Hassan Abdullahzadeh stepping out of a 900-year-old wartime shelter, near Sabzevar, NE Iran.

Inside wartime shelter, with multiple passages, including a secret one in the back.

Art historian Abdulreza Soleimani examining a 2500-year-old Achaemenidian stone crypt

The view from inside the stone structure over Cheshmeh Shafah, from 1000 BCE

Inside the Zoroastrian temple built by the Achaemenids (650 to 330 BCE)

Inside the 18th-century mausoleum of Sufi Baba Langer

“When you come here you should be petrified,” says archeologist Hassan Abdullahzadeh, “because it becomes so obvious that nothing lasts.”

The mausoleums of Sufis Baba Langer and Haj Baba Tavakol—two adjoining structures but centuries apart.

By Ali Torkzadeh

To the ignorant—or the American spy satellites that watch this land—it’s just hillside dirt hole, barely big enough to enter.

To the Iranians who’ve lived here for thousands of years, however, it’s a message from the past, a testament to how their ancestors managed to survive countless conquerors.

The hole is actually the entrance to a 900-year-old man-made cave created to hide from the enemy. There is another entrance from the above and then hidden
from the eye, there’s a tunnel in the back that leads to other caves dug over centuries for multiple escape routes.

There are probably hundreds of such wartime shelters just in this part of the country and countless others all over Iran, most of them long forgotten to time and sand.

“It’s like a maze of rat holes in there,” archeologist Hassan Abdullahzadeh tells me as I climb the hill shortly after sunrise, sleepy-eyed and thirsty. It’s 20th day of the Ramadan and I can’t eat or drink, at least not in the public, and clueless about the rich history lesson I was about to receive.

“Over the centuries, they figured out that they need to allow for anything that the enemy could think of. Even if the enemy found the cave and poured fire on them from above, there was still a way out,” says Abdullahzadeh, who works at the Cultural Heritage office in Sabzevar, 95 kilometers away and 700 kms east of Tehran.

“And it wasn’t just a cave. Inside we’ve found bedrooms, kitchens, works of art on the walls, sophisticated pottery.

“We found a bowl-shaped oil lamp with holes on the side; we suspect it was made to throw soft light on the walls in order to relax the occupants.

“Over time hiding in the caves wasn’t just about survival but a lifestyle. They found ways to live down there in tranquility to outlast the enemy.”

The lesson to the future enemies should be that “these people are tough survivors,” Abdullahzadeh goes on.

“Throughout history they’ve given refuge to travellers. After all, they were living on a crossroad of continents and learned to deal with foreigners of all types.”

There are indications that most foreigners came in peace and found hospitality here. There is even evidence that foreigners felt comfortable enough to leave their dead here to continue on their journey, Abdullahzadeh says.

“But vow to the outsider when the Iranian chooses to resist,” chimes in my other guide, Abdulreza Soleimani, art history professor and cultural heritage activist in Sabzevar. “One way or another, the foreigner either leaves or gets absorbed into the culture.

“The Iranians have been at this game for thousands of years; it’s in their blood now.”

I am in an area known as Baba Langar, named after the 14th century Sufi spiritualist buried further up the hill. What used to be the Silk Road is now an asphalt highway 20 kilometers away, busy as ever, with Eastern European and Turkish trucks zooming by to and from Central Asia.

Again, to the naked eye it’s just a few ordinary hills in middle of nowhere. Below us, old men and boys tend to the fields and herds of sheep and goat. Giggling
children jostle to be photographed by me, the latest newcomer; the women smile but nervously turn away at the sight of a camera.

To the archaeologists here and abroad, though, this area is home to a remarkable array of priceless structures spanning three millenniums and—because this area
has always been a thoroughfare—of many origins and beliefs. Moslems, Zoroastrians and even the Anahitas (pre-Zoroastrians dating back to 1000 BCE) left their mark here.

Even Buddhists went through here on their pilgirimages to the east, Abdullahzadeh writes in his latest of four books.

To climb the hill is like climbing into a time machine.

Just a stone’s throw from the shelter, there’s an Achaemenid (650 to 330 BCE) stone and mortar crypt, which most likely holds the remains of as many as 30 members of royalty.

“It’s too precious to ever dig it up and archeology has moved on from the let’s-dig-up-everything mentality,” Abdullahzadeh says.

And further up the hill I am led into the intact remains of a Zoroastrian temple, also built by the Achaemenids, where fire probably burned ceaselessly for centuries.

Besides the temple is an underground water reservoir and stone walls built into the side of the hill to keep the soil from washing away. All those were left by the Achaemenids too.

“You’re looking at a 2500-year-old wall and it’s still standing!” Abdullahzadeh exclaims. “They truly cared about their environment and worked to conserve it.”

Still further up the hill, and by now we’re panting and sweating under the puffy clouds that gently sail over us, we get to the mausoleum of Baba Langar, built
during the Safavid Dynasty (1501-1736 CE) and the tomb of Haj Baba Tavakol, another Sufi, this one from the 13th-century Ilkhanate Dynasty. Two structures a few meters from each other but centuries apart.

Then we turn to the east and descend down the hill to the natural spring of Cheshmeh Shafah—literally “fountain of healing”. The followers of Anahita believed its
water, still slowly gathering in a pool inside a chamber, had healing properties.

Pilgrims still tie pieces of cloth on the tree branches nearby as symbols of their prayers.

There’s so much more, including yet another Zoroastrian temple, a bathhouse and even a prison, all from different periods in history, all within what must be two or three square kilometers.

The Baba Langar village from above.

Qanat water is pooled above farmland for irrigation, as it has been done for thousands of years.

Abdullahzadeh is analytical now:

“When you come here you should be petrified,” he says as we descend back to the village, “because it becomes so obvious that nothing lasts. You come and go, no matter who you are and how powerful you are.

“There’s a higher power that directs us to be friends and share our resources, not fight over them.

“We want to send the world this message, to say, ‘look, this is what happened here. This is what history teaches us. We already know using force doesn’t work. So let’s set aside the fighting and live in peace.

Coming from the land of Dick, Condi and George—to some Iranians he’s known as “Little George”, the moniker popularized by Saddam Hussein when he was still in power—to me Abdullahzadeh’s statement sounds rather surprising and perhaps a bit naïve.

Instead of being angry about possible attack by the same gang that initiated the bloodbath in Iraq, both of my guides are calling for peace and cooperation.

There’s no resentment here. They believe there’s enough for everyone to share.

“They have things we need and we have things they need,” Soleimani says. “It just doesn’t make sense to fight.

“But if they choose to attack, well to me the outcome is already known,” he adds. “Just look around you. Iranians survived all this time. Why would it be different this time?”

I think of the arrogant neocons in Washington who would scoff at this kind of talk; their faith is in their guided missiles and their uncanny ability to wag the dog’s tail, even five years after September 11.

I recalled hearing Ronald Reagan during a televised speech calling Americans “people born to lead the world.”

Soleimani doesn’t lose a beat. He swings toward me, looks me in the eyes, and responds, quintessential of an Iranian, with a poem:

“Baad avardeh rah, Baadash bord.”

The best translation: “Easy come, easy go”

"Iran is Not a Location"

Wine, music and ascension to God. Plaster molding marvel reflects the kasrat-beh-vahdat concept at the entertainment hall in Ali Qapu Palace, Isfahan, Iran.

Tears have come to me twice so far from merely walking into a room in Iran.

The first was at Kashan’s Sultan Amir Bathhouse.

And then today, as I walked into what 400 years ago was the king’s entertainment hall at the Isfahan’s Ali Qapu Palace.

My guide and friend Abdulreza Soleimani was talking but I can’t recall what at the moment.

I was mumbling to myself: “What happened to you Iran? What happened?”

This was the room where Shah Abbas I entertained. The musicians were hidden in tiny quarters on the four sides of room, from which their music would spill into the room but they could not see the inside of the hall.

It’s all plaster! Close-up of 400-year-old plaster moldings.

“Before and after plaster molding repair at Ali Qapu Palace. The right side—the modern work isn’t as straight as the left side—the 400-year-old original.

Restoration artists at work at Ali Qapu Palace, Isfahan, Iran.

“Listen to the silence,” Soleimani pled with us.

“Do you hear the silence? This was the kind of silence the music penetrated. You see, in this age there was actually a philosophy of silence.”

The king sat in the middle of the room, where I stood now, surrounded on four sides with 3D plaster moldings shaped like bottles of wine and other containers, perhaps hundreds of each, in row after row, each row building upon the other, and changing shape and size, and giving way to other themes, until they met in the center of the dome.

The concept is called “kasrat-beh-vahdat”—literally “plurality to singularity”—one of the oldest and most revered concepts of Islam. Plurality—represented by all the beauty I was surrounded with—is the world and its people. Singularity—the golden center of the dome I was starring at—is God.

It says to mankind all things end in God and all things come from God.

I strode closer to the plaster moldings. Each representation of the wine bottle—in which sometimes actual bottles were placed—was perfectly identical to the other and in complete symmetry with the other elements.

How could they pull off that kind of perfection 400 years ago?

“You have to remember that the people who did this work were artists who had devoted their lives to expression of art and spirituality,” Soleimani said.

“You and I want wages to work. But the artist of 400 years ago was in the business of satisfying himself. He gave himself to his work.

“Hafez created a collection like no other but did not make a penny.”

Why even bother? Photos would never do justice to the dome at the king’s entertainment room at Ali Qapu Palace, Isfahan, Iran

He showed me new plaster work created with modern equipment. The shapes were off. They symmetry was not as perfect as the 400-year-old.

How could the ancient people be more exact? What were their tools?

“The tools of the heart!” Soleimani snapped back. “What tools did Rumi use to ascend to the heavens?”

“You see Ali,” he turned toward me. “You have to understand that Iran is not a geographic location. Iran is a way of thinking; it’s a way of loving.

“When you’re back in America never think of yourself as being from a place. Think of yourself as devotion, of thought—that took thousands of years to form.”

The architects and their artisans used “the tools of the heart,” says art historian Abdulreza Soliemani, speaking at the king’s entertainment hall at Ali Qapu Palace, Isfahan, Iran. Beautiful tourist on the left not part of the entertainment.

Lessons of War

Inside the mosque, the only functional structure remaining today at the 14th century Aa-Ghaleh fortress, 75 kms NE of Sabzevar, NE Iran.

What remains of the entrance to the “arg” (or the citadel) at Aa-Ghaleh fortress.

Entrance to the mosque, on the other end of Aa-Ghaleh fortress.

Archaeologist Hassan Abdullahzadeh on what used to be 10-meter-high, 4-meter-thick walls protecting the fortress of Aa-Ghaleh

What used to be housing for soldiers living directly under the fortress walls.

By Ali Torkzadeh

You can choose to turn your homeland into a state-of-the-art citadel and put your faith in weapons and seemingly impenetrable walls, but is that a good solution for the long-term?

The ancient Persians who lived and farmed here, on the edge of the Dasht-e Kavir desert in what today is northeast Iran, did just that.

The Aa-Ghaleh, founded in 1312 CE by the ruling Mongolian Ilkhanate dynasty, was one of those fortresses, built to last any attack. Its remains, even after centuries of neglect and much of it buried under desert sand, say a lot about the security-obsessed people who lived here.

I am walking the kilometer-wide “shaar” or the common area of city with Hassan Abdullahzadeh, archeologist at the Cultural Heritage office in Sabzevar, 75 kms away.

Behind me is the mosque, the only part of Aa-Ghaleh that remains in functional shape today and is undergoing long-awaited reconstruction. Everything else is nearly unrecognizable from the ravages of time.

There are still standing parts of the “baaroo” or the outer walls of the city, composed of three to four meters of mud, piled high to as much as ten meters. Behind the wall is the moat, four or five meters wide. It was filled with water to provide yet another impasse against attacks.

The common people lived in the shaar;the rich and the royalty lived in the “arg”, roughly the equivalent of the Western citadel, an even more secure area, a city within the city, with battlements and multi-story buildings of rock and mortar.

The arg also served as the final refuge for the rest of the people when the outer city fell. People would rush in before the gate would roll into place.

There could not be a more secure gate to the arg. It could not be burned or broken because it was made out of pure rock, two meters in diameter and perhaps as much as 1.5 meters thick!

What remains of the arg today speak of luxury and architectural excellence. An octagonal area immediately behind the gate, known as the “hashti”, is at least 10 meters high and about 20 meters wide. This entire space used to be covered by a single giant roof and kept warm during the winter with giant fireplaces on four sides.

The people who lived here paid a price for security on daily basis, Abdullahzadeh explains.

Building other gates would have been too risky—and expensive, considering the drawbridges required to cross the moat—so even getting to farmland immediately behind the walls was a chore, requiring daily commutes around the outer walls—sort of like traveling the maze at today’s airport security checkpoints.

Then there were the taxes paid to the rulers, who stayed in power in the name of fighting terror—much like the way modern taxpayers finance wars dreamed up by leaders who prefer foreign adventures over boring domestic administration.

“War permeated everyday life,” Abdullahzadeh says. “When the farmer went out to the field, he had a shovel in one hand and a sword in the other.

“We’ve found a Koran verse posted, calling on the people to go out and enjoy nature, but it surely was difficult to enjoy anything if you had to worry about the safety of your family everyday.

“No one lives here today; even the walls they thought would last for ever are crumbling away.”

“That hardened these people into a special breed, to be able to live generation after generation juggling loyalty to God, the sword and the family, and still manage to produce architectural wonders and beautiful poetry.”

The lesson here, Abdullahzadeh says, is that solving conflicts through force and then hiding behind fortress walls does not pay in the long-term.

“They built all this, all these walls, all this weaponry, spent so much of their resources on security,” he says, excitedly gesturing with his arms, “but eventually it all turned into dust.

“No one lives here today; even the walls they thought would last for ever are crumbling away.

“The other lesson is that conquerors didn’t get much either. You see, they are not around anymore either. I find that especially amusing.

“Let’s say America attacks and takes over this land,” Abdullahzadeh continues. “But what are the Americans going to do with desert land? And surely the people whose relatives where killed during the attack aren’t going to help them. So how are they going to make things work?

And, of course, I can’t help but immediately think of the nightmare unfolding about 1500 kms to the west of us, in the place where some very foolish conquerors thought they would be greeted with sweets and flowers.

We walk back to the car and head back to Sabzevar. It’s October 18th, 2006 and the 25th day of Ramadan. It’s mid-afternoon and everyone’s hungry, even I, even though I’m not fasting.

But my mind is elsewhere. I had just read on the Internet that average death toll in Iraq has risen to 43 a day.

If only decaying mud could rise up and speak of what it saw. But would even that make a difference?

Music of Architecture

Inside the great room at the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan, Iran.

“Ali, do you hear me?” my father says.

He’s at least 35 meters away. He’s not shouting and he’s turned away from me, his face closely tucked in one of the corner of the giant domed hall at the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran.

The light is poor and I can barely see him.

But to hear him? Logic says that should be impossible. Yet, I do hear him—albeit in a low, grated tone. I saw giggling tourists do the same thing in the vestibule at the Ali Qapu Palace, across the Naghsh-i Jahan Square from where we are now.

Then my guide, art historian Abdulreza Soleimani, grabs my shoulders and positions me in the exact center of the 20-by-20 meter room. The breathtaking domed ceiling—bejeweled and sparkling with literally thousands of hand-painted miniature shapes—towers perhaps 30 meters above us.

“Say something, anything.”

“Okay, I’m in Isfahan!” I yell.

I hear myself reverberating through the room. But the resonance is instant. It’s not really an echo. It doesn’t interfere with my speech.

It’s like speaking into “a hundred Bose speakers,” is how my my father puts it.

“This is a component of what they call music of architecture,” Soleimani explains. “It’s the literal kind and it’s very common. Iranian architects did this for obvious reasons; to allow for sound amplification technology that didn’t yet exist.

“Another form of music of architecture—the kind that is most often referred to in research—is music that is woven into structures.

“When you listen to Persian music, say the Chahargah, you have a prologue, a beginning and so on. Slowly you are taken to a certain height before you land back down.

“Same with architecture. This morning we walked up the steps of Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, then we entered the vestibule and then a hallway that led to another hallway, and so on.

“Then you were facing the walls in the great room, where every tile, every shape has been calculated to raise you to a higher realm. Then other shapes are to take you to even higher planes. Until, of course, you meet the center of the dome, the height of your experience before you are led back down and out the door. Kasrat-beh-vahdat is taking you to meet God.

“This is the music of architecture. The Iranians who designed these structures were not just building buildings. That was the least of their concerns.

“They created an experience, an experience of the heart and the spirit, to worship, to sing praises to the heavens and allow us to experience the same even centuries later.”

Naghsh-i Jahan: Answer to the "Loneliness of Liberalism"

Naghsh-i Jahan Square, view from the iwan at Ali Qapu Palace.

Could brick and mortar help harmonize a society?

In the West, the question might bring to mind building border fences to keep out illegal immigrants and terrorists.

The Iranians of an age long gone had something else in mind.

I’m standing in Naghsh-i Jahan Square of Isfahan built by Shah Abbas I when this city was the capital of the Safavid Dynasty.

The label “square” does not do it justice. It’s more like a rectangular arena the size of perhaps four or five football fields, so big that during this hazy day people on the other side are not visible.

What’s the king doing? Where are the mullahs? Naghsh-i Jahan Square, one of the largest in the world, held the answers in the Iran of 400 years ago.

It’s one of the largest squares in the world and one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites.

The four sides are lined with artisan shops, each with an identical façade. Behind them run the bazaars for various types of crafts, their dark noisy corridors peppered with dusty rays of sun.

The top of the façade is even throughout, a straight line around me. That’s the Persian architect’s way of establishing cohesion and stating respect for oneness of all, says my guide and art historian Abdulreza Soleimani.

There are four places that the skyline does break. On the north side is the entrance to the Isfahan’s Grand Bazaar; on the east, the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque; on the south-side the Shah Mosque; and on the west, the Ali Qapu Palace.

“You have every organ of society all meeting in this one square,” Soleimani explains. “The bazaar represents commerce. The Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque was really a school, so it represented academia. The Shah Mosque represented religion, and the Ali Qapu [Palace], that was were the king sat.

“Every element of society was not only here, they actually could watch each other,” he goes on. “Sheik Lotf Allah knew what was going on across the street with the king and likewise the mullahs at the Shah Mosque were in touch and simultaneously accountable for what they were doing.

“This is how the square instituted a kind of equilibrium and accountability between the top elements of the society.

“It also provided a rhythm and humanity to life. If one morning the Haj Agha across the square didn’t open up his shop, the other shopkeepers would send a messenger to his home to find out why.

“Say the news comes back that he’s dead. Then the entire square would shut down. Everyone would pull down their shutters, go and bury their colleague, then come back, open up his shop, put his son in charge, and only then go back to business as usual.

“Then there was the productivity aspect. If I’m a copper artistan here and hear others clanging away with their hammers, this would inspire me to also be productive. But if I was on the other side of the town, then I would be alone there. I would never be as inspired to contribute, to create, to fabricate art.

“You see, the square inspired community and thereby provided security and peace of mind. Because people were part of the community, they could concentrate on their craft. It’s that peace of mind that allowed people to create the kind of world-class art you see here.

“The community ruled, not the individual. The fabric of community was so strong that no one man—not even the king—would dare to force himself over it.

“Later on, during the Qajar dynasty and the influence of the West, the palace moved away from the square, like it is in the West. Now the king was dependent on the intermediators—today’s lobbyists. He fell out of touch with society and, as you know, that’s when things went downhill with Iran.

“And the society fell in love with the liberalism of the West, the worship of the individual, which leads to a dictatorship of the self.

“Yes, they have more material things; the individual imagines and builds fantastic things, but at the end of the day he’s alone; he’s less of a human. In Europe, a person actually prefers to be with a dog or cat sitting at home instead of interacting with other human beings.

“They call it democracy and freedom, but in reality it’s about the individual being out of control, doing as they wish, not respecting and not benefiting from the wisdom of the community.

“Now tell me, what kind of a person is not a dictator? The person who is just.

“But just people are rare in the West. We know that because the amount Westerners spend just on their dogs and cats would easily wipe out starvation in Africa. But they won’t do it.

“This is how we know that liberalism has not produced justice.

The academics at the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque could literally watch the Ali Qapu Palace across Naghsh-i Jahan Square, one of the largest in the world.

Back at the hotel, my father and I learn from EuroNews that journalists have laid siege to Tom Cruise’s hotel ahead of his wedding this weekend.

Some people have paid 100,000 euros to watch the wedding, the satellite television report says.

“A hundred thousand euros! Can you believe that?” I exclaim.

It’s applicable to where we are. An Iranian medical school graduate might make as little as $300 a month but an apartment in Tehran can easily cost $500/month to rent.

“It’s the sick system, not the people,” my father says with a contemptuous hiss. He glances back at me and flashes his trademark I-told-you smile. He is referring to the countless debates we’ve had over the alleged immorality of the West.

“When you are raised a certain way, this is where you end up. It’s the system; it’s not Tom Cruise. Mr. Tom Cruise would never be Tom Cruise outside this system. It’s the system that turns people into these pointless lives.”

I respond: “The system gives people what they’re asking for. The journalists are just providing a product.”

“Precisely,” he smiles again. “That’s what I’m saying too. If they are just peddling a product, then they are not journalists anymore. It’s corporate profit-taking, not journalism.

“Please forgive my language, but it becomes pimping.”

Panorama #1 (57kb)

Just north of village of Kharaghani, Shahrood area, NE Iran.

Spiritual Architecture: "The mind can't do it"

“The mind could not create such beauty,” says art historian Abdulreza Soleimani, at the mihrab, inside Sheik Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan, Iran.

“Do you see this little turquoise piece,” says my guide, art historian Abdulreza Soleimani. “How many of pieces like this one do you think there are just on this wall?”

He’s pointing to a piece perhaps one by two centimeters, one of the thousands upon thousands of slices of tile, larger and smaller, cut into odd shapes and put together like pieces of puzzle.

It’s called “moaragh”—the art of creating breathtaking mosaics by putting together odd-shaped pieces.

We’re standing inside the Sheik Lotf Allah Mosque, one of the components of the world-renowned Naghsh-i Jahan Square in Isfahan, Iran. The sheik taught students from the very spot we stood—the mihrab—overlooking the 20-by-20 meter room around us. The tile walls led to the dome towering above, perhaps 30 meters high.

One shot couldn’t do it justice. I keep going back and back and back to show the enormity of what surrounds me.

“Now,” Soleimani continues, “how do you suppose the artistan of 500 years ago put these pieces together without the aid of any modern technology, no computers, nothing?

“And he did it almost as fast as the hand could move,” and Soleimani starts slapping his hand up and down the wall like he’s trying to catch a crawling insect.

He did it that fast? I ask incredulously. How could he?

“He did it because he was not relying on his mind; the mind could never create such beauty.

“These men where in an irfani state of mind, something you might call a trance. Man can bring himself to such places in spirituality that the self is eliminated; the mind ceases to make decisions, and the heart takes over.

“Like Abu-Said Abul Khair prayed, as he was about to address a crowd waiting outside the mosque, ‘God, make it so Abu-Said is gone; that they hear not me, but you.’

“Don’t be surprised. We are surprised because we’re not connected to that mentality.

“Back then they lived in a kind of harmony between mankind, nature and architecture. Thus they were far closer to God.

“Therefore, for them the creation of such structures, so much beauty, was not fantastic; it was normal.

“You and I stand around in awe. We’re flabbergasted; we can’t comprehend. But that’s because we’re cut off from that culture. We’re lost our connection to the realm they lived in.”

Time of Architecture

The reflection on the inside of the dome pointing downward. It’s around 12 noon.

You’re studying at the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque. You want to know the time but the sheik is thundering from the mehrab. And by the way, it’s the 15th-century Iran.

The solution: just look up, at the spectacular hand-painted dome towering 30 meters above.

Iranian architects used the side windows to reflect the sun’s position into the dome, forming a long band of reflected light that serves as the hour-hand of a clock.

Unearthing Iran's Past, One House at a Time

Before and after of Ameri House, the 230-year-old home of a former military commander based in Kashan, Iran. It required excavating a dozen or more meters to unearth its cellar and hidden passageways.

The before photos remind me of post-war Germany. No bombing necessary here, though. Disinterest in one’s past did the job.

No after photos necessary either. The impossible stood in front me; the 230-year-old Ameri House of Kashan back in its full glory, a veritable witness to persistence, thoughtfulness and love for Iran’s heritage.

It’s also testimony to the idea that revitalization of historical structures can be economically profitable. They draw tourists, generate income, boost local pride and awareness, and motivate others to do the same.

For me, they bring enchantment and wonder. They also create many more questions.

Why was so much beauty left to rot like a pile of garbage? How much more of Iran’s past is dying under sand? I asked as I walked the fragrant courtyards and occassionally peeked at the faces behind the throngs of chador-clad tourists.

The Abbasi House, 205 years old, is known for its complex architectural design (left); scene from the Sultan Amir Ahmad neighborhood, filled with many other valuable properties awaiting restoration.

Kashan, completely leveled by earthquake in 1778 CE, is believed to be one of the oldest centers of civilization in the world. The nearby remains of the community of Sialk, discovered some 60 years ago, are believed to be about 8,000 years old.

“We’re working on the theory that some of the civilization of Egypt originated here” based on the tools and artwork unearthed, says Mostafa Moghtadaee, a Tehran architect who spearheaded the restoration of the houses in Kashan.

Ameri House is one of five properties so far restored or improved from previous restrations at the behest of Moghtadaee, partner with the firm Beenesh-o-Fann Consulting Engineers, and co-founder of the Kashan Cultural Foundation.

Tehran architect Mostafa Moghtadaee (left) spearheaded the restoration of the houses in Kashan, pictured here with artist and researcher Marjan Modarresi.

He says he found the structures, at one time home to the rich and famous, in ruin or poor maintenance some 20 years ago. He was able to convince a former mines and metals minister, Hosein Mahlooji, to provide government funds to buy and restore the properties, in some cases digging a dozen or more meters into hardened earth to reach the original floors.

The work began 13 years ago. The accolades came in later.

• The Ameri is recognized as the single largest house in Iran, with 12,000 square-meters on about 9,600 sq/mt of land.
• The Tabatabi House, 195-year-old, has been noted by UNESCO for its unique wind-catcher, according to Abulfazl Mohammadzadeh, guide with the local Cultural Heritage office.
• The Abbasi House, 205 years old, is known for its complex architectural design.
• The 180-year-old Broojerdi House is famous for ts intricate plaster-mouldings.
• Finally, the Sultan Amir Ahmad Bathhouse—well, no verbal accolades necessary for that. Just walking in brought tears to my eyes. Read upcoming article.

Moghtadaee says the renovations have prodded local businesses to renovate other old structures to use them for their offices. Tourists arrive by the bus-load. Many new jobs were created. The look and feel of the Sultan Amir Ahmad neighborhood, home to the structures, have changed for ever.

“You should see what visitors, especially the Italians, write in the guestbook,” he says.

“The foreign tourists are besides themselves,” Mohammadzadeh adds. “They beg us to let them on the roof [of the Ameri House] to photograph the windcatchers.” Entering the roof is prohibited to respect the privacy of the neighboring homes, he explains.

Stained glass laid in thin slices of plaster inside the reception room at the 195-year-old Tabatabi House.

The tourist visits are growing, although Moghtadaee explains that they rarely stay overnight because Kashan lacks good hotels.

“Last Norouz season they sold 650,000 tickets,” Moghtadaee says. “Just the income from the tickets, postcards and posters sold could fund many more restorations.”

The income, however, is not benefiting the project, he says. Once its benefactor, Minister Mahlooji was out of office, Iran’s Cultural Heritage ministry took over and the funding went dry. By law, the tourist income goes to the central government coffers, not to the projects that generated the income.

“They not only stopped the funding; they aren’t even maintaining what’s been restored,” Moghtadaee says. “They literally throw blocks in our way. This is the nature of politics going on.”

Restoration on eleven other structures purchased is at a stand-still, the properties under lock.

“I’m still working with them even though I’m not getting paid; the little salary they would pay is not even worth the trouble of collecting,” he says.

“I do it because I simply love doing this. When I come here, people gather around me with questions, hungry for direction, because there is no one here to make decisions.

“There is a method of working in every system and you just have to figure it out,” he says with resignation as we rode the bus back to Tehran. “Here in Iran, we manage to do our work, go after what we love, pursue our personal enjoyments too.”

Tourists at the 180-year-old Broojerdi House (left); the intricate plaster-moulding works on the vestibule’s ceiling (middle) and the reception room (right)

Walls Were Needed to Live in Peace

Haji Asghar, 75, landowner and farmer, Bastam, NE Iran.

“This land has been in my family for generations. It was passed on to me from my mother.

“Thanks to God, it is very fertile. Only an occassional cold weather causes trouble. But even the green tomatoes that we have to pick to avoid the frost, we pile them and put a plastic sheet over them, and eventually they will become red too.

“The wall you see here is from before Islam. It’s that old [at least 1300 years old]. The person who told you it’s only 60 years old doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“This entire town was surrounded by this wall and many turrets for security, to keep out the trouble.

“When I was a child the Turkmen used to descend down from the highlands and steal horses and children.

“One of my relatives was stolen when he was a child. The next time we saw him, he was a grownup man with his own Turkman wife and children.

“People lived in the fear of the Turkmen until Reza Shah devised a solution. He invited the leaders of the Turkmen to give them an award. But the whole thing was a setup.

“Four or five [Turkmen] came and stood up to give speeches. Then on signal, they were shot one after the other. After that, this area was secure. The Turkman problem was solved.

“That’s how law and order was enforced back then. They even had a method called “otto”. They’d tie up one leg to one vehicle and another leg to another vehicle and the two vehicles would go to opposite directions.

“The people of Bastam were always very poor. I am illiterate, but when I was a kid as soon as someone who could read came around, we’d gather and have him read to us anything we could get our hands on.

“We found out that the Bastamis were so poor that when they marched to Karbala [in today’s Iraq], by the time they got there, they no longer had any shoes. They had worn away. Nothing to eat either.

“Hazrateh Masoumeh [sister of Imam Hussein] told Imam Hussein, ‘look at these people. Pity them for their poverty.’ Imam Hussein responded that these people should be cursed and ordered that they should not be allowed to take water from the Euphrates.

Growing tomatoes next to history: “The wall you see here is from before Islam. … This entire town was surrounded by this wall and many turrets for security, to keep out the trouble.”

“This was because the Bastamis had gone there to fight against Imam Hussein. They were Shi’i but were fooled into acting against him through publicity.

“That’s what publicity can do. It can get you to do crazy things; it can be a terrible thing.”

Wine, Women and War: Beginning of the Downhill

The beginning of the downhill: Could they have possibly imagined where their country would be in 400 years when Iranians dared to concoct such flamboyant beauty?

When Shah Abbas II wined and dined foreign dignitaries at the mind-bogglingly beautiful Chehel Sotoon palace in the early 1600’s, Iran was a power to be reckoned with.

When I arrived here a few hours ago, Iran was writhing in pain in the dustbin of history as it has for at least two centuries.

Chehel Sotoon means “40 columns”. Forty is a revered number in Islam. There were only 20 columns. The reflection in the pond provided the additonal 20 columns.

As I walked the same iwan where European ambassadors came to pay homage, it suddenly occurred to me that the grand time Shah Abbas was having was really the beginning of the downhill. Europe was galloping out of its own nightmare; Enlightenment was already in its birthing pains; and a ragtag band of religious zealots had just become the first of New World immigrants who would eventually control a third of the world’s economy.

But Iran? If the murals inside the palace are any indication, the king and his cohorts were either fighting boundary wars with medieval weapons or swirling in silk in their harems.

Wine, women and war. It was like an episode of the Six Million Dollar Man, except this was no fiction. Europe was waking up as Iran was going to sleep.

“This was just about the time they lost their khod-bavari”—Persian: belief in one’s self, Gohar, one of the guides at Chehel Sotoon, told me.

“When they went and saw Europe they lost themselves. In response, they started copying instead of being themselves—just like the Iranian youth of today. It’s just a lot worse today.”

A 40-column palace and a swarm of royal sycophants or a teetering wooden bed under the shade and peace of mind? I’d choose the latter over the former any time.

Enamored with the Foreign

Maybe in Quebec or France, Star Burger would get into trouble for choosing an English name.

Here in Iran, it not only gets away with an English name, it pours salt on the wounds of the pure-Persianist by phonetically writing the name in Farsi script.

Never mind that most people wouldn’t know exactly where the words “estar” or “berger” come from. Quickly and happily they add them to today’s vernacular Persian, a potpourri of classical Farsi (rest in peace), Arabic, French, English and other tongues.

Deciphering store signs requires the art of simultaneously reading Persian and some other language phonetically written in Farsi.

Even reading the newspaper has become a chore, my father tells me.

“I kept seeing this word that looked like ‘consel’ or ‘conosel’ and kept wondering what is it. Finally, I realized they’ve written ‘cancel’, like such and such concert was cancelled. They could’ve used many Persian words to say the same thing.”

Samsung, Panasonic, Toyota, Coca Cola, every world brand has its own countenance in Farsi script.

But brands aside, Iranians go out of their way to mix in anything else they can get their mouths around.

“Maan voicemaileh shomah-roh beh mobilam deerooz divert kardam,” an acquaintance casually informs me.

He means: “Yesterday I diverted your voicemail to my mobile [phone].”

The poor soul who only reads pure Persian would starve in this restaurant, inside a government-run park. Every single item is presented in Farsi-scripted Western words. The numbers didn’t go Farsi, though, perhaps for that extra touch of irony.

Maybe better to let Iranians use phonetic English and not try to translate. Here buffet made it relatively intact into what sounds like “boo-feh”, but the Persian translation of children’s playground to English somehow became “children landspeculation”. Maybe someone’s acerbic joke at the skyrocketing land prices here.

You know, sometimes I wonder why I’m even labeled as a foreigner here.

At least one guy thought I’m more Iranian than the Iranians living in Tehran.

“Every word you speak is actually Persian,” he tells me, “which is a rarity now. Most young people in Tehran are constantly trying to pepper in foreign words.”

They think doing so is cool, I’m told.

Until a few years ago, the government, a la Québécois, tried and tried to cleanup the language.

Businesses were fined, signs destroyed, countless man-hours spent dreaming up Persian equivalents to technological terms. The computer is rayaneh in the government’s tongue, the only way to communiate in much of the literature.

So the newspaper that is confusing people with the Persian-ized English and French words also bugs them with computer classifieds that one can’t decipher.

Solemn vows taken to fight to death the “tahajomeh farhangi” [cultural invasion] beaming into satellite dishes day and night and metastasizing through one of the world’s youngest society’s. Half of the 70 million people are under 30.

But the dishes are still there and at least in Tehran businesses go out of their way to choose foreign names.

“One thing you should know about the Iranian,” a friend tells me. “It’s that they are the absolute experts at destroying the system.”

He means that no matter who happens to be lording over them at the time—the Greek, the Arab, the Mongol—Iranians are specialists at disobeying the rules set by the conqueror, to eventually make mince meat of the culture of the subjugator, to the point that often they end up co-opting the master.

No Smoking in Persian

Persian no-smoking sign: “The employees of this inn do not use nicotine products.”

I kept seeing the above same sign at various inns I stayed at and wondered about its significance.

It says: “Dearest Guest, The employees of this inn do not use nicotine products.”

So what? Why are you telling me this? Why would I care that the employees of this inn do not smoke?

Then one night my father came in sneezing and complaining about German tourists smoking in the lobby.

“There’s a no-smoking sign there but the darn thing is in Persian,” he said plaintively.

What no-smoking sign? I asked.

To my amazement, I realized he was talking about the mysterious employees-don’t-smoke sign.

You see, by expressing its employees’ dislike for smoking, the hotel is indirectly asking the guests to not smoke! I am not kidding. My father tells me this is just as serious as any non-smoking sign in the West. They’re just doing indirectly, trying to be polite and non-confrontational. They’re being gentle and considerate but they expect you to understand it as a request not to smoke.

It might seem weird to the Westerner. For chrissake, why don’t you just say it plain and simple in two darn words: “No smoking”?

But who are we to say what is normal communication?

Not Perfect? How Dare You?

Not perfect? How dare you? Cinema heartthrob, Mahnaz Afshare. Source: movie poster.

My aunt arranged a meeting with a beautiful young woman “so you two can meet and see if anything could be worked out” in regards to marriage.

I showed up at my aunt’s house with my mother. She shows up with her mom—an hour late. We speak for about 15 minutes privately as our mothers massaged each other’s egos nearby.

My mother had high hopes. “Can Ali call you?” my mother asked as the prospective bride said her goodbyes. She responded positively with a smile.

I called her cell number several times in the next couple of days. No one answered. My mother called my aunt—the RAW-bet here, the contact between the two families. A few days later the message comes back that the would-be bride is upset that she has not received a call from me!

It was a convoluted message, I was told, but essentially it was the other family’s way of saying all bets are off.

It didn’t rhyme with the family’s other messages, though. My parents were perplexed and grilled me on the now-famous 15-minute conversation.

“Anything else?” my mother says, eyeing me like a hawk. “Try harder to remember.”

“I told you. We just talked about education and where we prefer to live. I talked about living in the U.S. and how I made a lot of mistakes because I went there at 15 …”

“What? You told her you made mistakes?” My father jumped off his chair as if shot by lightning.

“Yeah, what’s the big deal? I told her I made mistakes when I was a kid living on my own in a strange culture.”

“Ah, Ali joon, you never admit you made mistakes,” my mother said with such sadness, as if she had just watched the family’s good name carted off on a garbage truck.

“No I told her that when I was a kid 30 years ago …”

“Doesn’t matter,” my father shot back. “In Iran, you just never ever say, ‘I made a mistake.’ Period. It’s just not done.

“You just discovered what turned her off. When they go home and start talking among themselves, they say, ‘imagine how horrible his mistakes were that he was forced to make a reference to them!’

“Then, being Iranian, they start giving it leaves and branches. ‘What in the world could he have done? Ah, that’s why he’s still not married! Ah, that’s why he’s back in Iran at all, otherwise why would he bother?’ Pretty soon they’re comparing you with …”

“This is pretty crazy, you know,” I say. “To me, it’s as sign of maturity to say, ‘I made mistakes and learned from them.’ Isn’t life about making …?”

“Ali,” my father says impatiently, “What did I tell you before? Forget about what you know. You are here now. Do as they do here. You have to adapt or you won’t get anywhere.”

I can’t be more thankful for what transpired with my dear would-be wife. This thing with not admitting mistakes has absolutely fascinated me.

It explains so much.

Yes, people say with a smile, as if I just solved a puzzle for them too, this is why the government officials could never admit mistakes. If they did, it would automatically mean they’re not fit to govern.

(Just wait a minute! Is George Bush Iranian?)

This is why so many perplexing things remain unchanged—things that just make you scream, ‘Why? Why? Why?’

Like so many misleading highway signs; like the airport sign that sends traffic away from Tehran’s brand-new airport.

Could it be that the bad highway signs remain because changing them would be admitting screwing up the previous signs?

“People not only never admit wrongdoing, they are always looking for something to blame you for,” says a cousin, who, along with four colleagues, installs and repairs European manufactured laboratory equipment.

“They’re constantly watching you. Something might go wrong with something completely unrelated, and suddenly they say, ‘Ah, it was so and so’s fault all along’—even things that have nothing to do with you.

“For me it’s better to keep doing something the wrong way than correct it. Because just changing, say, the [wrong] technique I’m repairing something, would be an admission of past mistakes. Then your co-workers will be all over you.

“Obviously, it’s hard to work in this environment. The Europeans that come to visit us at work just don’t have the capacity to comprehend all [the crap] we have to deal with.”

Update: My father wants me to tape the future 15-minuters. Too much at stake to leave it to a greenhorn from the US of A.

If only Dubya and Karl were here to teach me the art of fakehood.

"I Choose Hejab"

Mitra Hamedi, 19, and Akram Khayrabadi, 20; art students the Islamic Azad University of Sabzevar, NE Iran.

MH: “Women in Iran today have a much greater role in society than ever before. Women now compose about 60% of university students. I think that says a lot. We’re allowed to do more things than ever before.

MH: “It depends how you define freedom. If by freedom you mean being able to go into the street in anything I willy-nilly feel like, yes, by that definition we are limited.

“But what a crazy thing to define freedom as pertaining to choice of clothing. What you wear shouldn’t even be considered in a discussion on freedom. I think freedom is about a person’s ability to reach his or her highest potential.

AK: “They think hejab limits the woman. But in fact in the work sector it is very helpful. If you have to come to work everyday in a different color [of dress] and worry about how to decorate yourself, that takes so much time and concentration. It’s nice not to worry about that.

“Also hejab protects one from the licentious eyes. I find that very comforting.

“I choose hejab because I have thought about it carefully and I want it. I think it is problematic if one just does it out of tradition and doesn’t think about why she does it.

AK: “That way of thinking might work elsewhere. But I think one has to care about what her appearance does to others in the street. I think we are responsible for how our presence might harm another person.

AK: “Yes. A professor of mine gave us a great metaphor. Going in the street without proper covering is like going around swinging a knife and then saying, ‘I’m not responsible if this hits you because I’m just swinging it; I didn’t intend to hit you.’”

MH: “I’m not saying our country doesn’t have problems. A lot of attitudes need to be changed.

“I ask you, why in China people go everywhere on their bikes—it is economical, good for the environment and it’s great exercise—and in my country an office worker or even college students say, ‘riding a bike is beneath me.’?”

"If We Were Locked Up, We Wouldn't Be Here"

“… whether I return or not—I would decide that after I finish my studies. Maybe I return, maybe not. That will be my decision alone,” says Hajar, middle.

Historical architecture restoration university students at a field trip to the Jame Mosque, Isfahan, Iran.

Safooreh: “I know Western people think we [Iranian women] are all covered up and locked up at home, with no power of our own. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Tahereh I: “We have a lot of freedoms. Look, if that wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t all be here. We’re all here from different parts of the country, living independently, going to college.

“My husband, in fact, encourages me so much to study. It’s my studies that have brought me here, or I would be with him in Yazd, where he is a student. … We get to see each other once every couple of weeks.”

[The university selection system in Iran requires students to move to the universities where there is room for the subject for which they have been accepted in the annual national university entrance exam, known as the konkoor.]

Tahereh II: “My father is always encouraging me to be as active as possible. He is always saying, ‘Tahereh, never give up learning and being active.’”

“… We have a lot of freedoms. Look, if that wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t all be here,” says Tahereh I, right. “My father is always encouraging me to be as active as possible,” says Tahereh II, middle. “He’s always saying, ‘Tahereh, never give up learning and being active.’”

Hajar: “My parents don’t encourage me but I’m determined to reach my goals. I’m studying art restoration now but my first love is writing screenplays. My goal is study it as much as I can and write my own screenplays.”

Pareesaw, responding to the other women: “That might be the case in your homes, but in my hometown [in Khuzestan] I can show you 1,000 women just staring at the mouths of their husbands to see what comes out.

“When I was at home, I had to be home by 6 pm everyday.”

Hajar: “Where in Khuzestan were you? I am from Khuzestan and I was out late all the time.”

Pareesaw: “Look, if I am out at night and someone grabs me and throws me in a car, who is going to know?”

Safooreh: “I think you are being unduly fearful. You’re just taking a few rare instances and making a big deal out of it.”

Tahereh I: “If the education I get over there is going to benefit my work; yes, I would go. But never stay. This is my home. This is where I belong.”

In Khuzestan, “I can show you 1,000 women just staring at the mouths of their husbands to see what comes out,” says Pareesaw, far left.

Tahereh II: “Absolutely not. I am going to stay no matter what. There’s so much to do. Look at all these precious works of art that need restoration. You have to stay and work as hard as you can. It’s a moral imperative.”

Hajar: “I would go abroad because my work will be appreciated over there. And about whether I return or not—I would decide that after I finish my studies. Maybe I return, maybe not. That will be my decision alone.”

Tahereh II: “What are you saying? You just heard the professor say how much work remains here. We have to stay and support each other, work in unity.”

Hajar snaps back: “Iranians like to talk about watching each other’s back, but that’s just talk. As soon as the going gets tough, they disappear and you’re left alone.”

Tahereh II: “Look, Prophet Mohammed said, ‘Follow knowledge to wherever, even to China.’ So we have to go if that’s what it takes. But we also have to return to serve our country.”

"Injustice Built Me"

Mona Rahnama, 23, carpet arts student, the Islamic Azad University of Sabzevar, NE Iran.

“My first love was music. That’s what I wanted to study. I play the daf and the setar. But only the very very best ever have any chance of getting into college [for classical Persian music]. In all of Tehran, there are only 25 slots; in the entire country, perhaps 125.

“And there are three examinations, including a performance exam. But the teachers who also test you prefer to accept their own students. So practically speaking, if you’re not connected you haven’t got a chance.

“So I pursued carpet-making because I liked the art aspect of it. When you create something with your hands, the feeling is wonderful.

“It’s unjust not to be able to pursue what you love. Obviously. And people in arts tend to have their feeling hurt pretty easily.

“But injustice is everywhere. Injustice, in fact, can serve to help you become stronger, although at first you won’t know that.

“I’ll give you another example: once I could not play the daf exactly as my teacher wanted me to. So every time I played a wrong note, he would tear out a page out of my music book. I cried and played and he kept pulling pages out.

“I stepped outside and cried again. I felt it was so unjust. My teacher came out and said, ‘you won’t understand it now but I did you a great favor.’”

“Now I realize he was right. It served me well in the long-run. Injustice has built me. Today I run my own life and make my decisions.”

Tired of Fighting

“There are only two things they are interested in: cooking at home and going window shopping for gold jewelry.”

X, 36, confronts men in public and bosses them around at her job. A lawyer by training, she feels women deserve to be treated exactly as men.

But X has a problem. She lives in Sabzevar, Iran, a religious town 700 long kilometeres east of Tehran—where women have gained at least some semblance of legal and social deference, at least more than what they had before the 1979 Islamic revolution—and thousands of miles from any European town that offers women the kind of respect X yearns for.

Her list of complaints against chauvinism is long. The stories she recounts are telling.

“My 9-year-old son and I go out for exercise. He’s on his bike and I’m walking quickly behind him. We’re out for an hour or so, when I suddenly feel a hand grabbing my behind. It is such an obvious grab that I am sure it’s a female friend playing a joke, so I just turn around with a smile, expecting to see a familiar face.

“But instead I see this guy running away, jumps on a motorcycle and takes off. I am shaken. I call my son and we hurry back home. Then I realize the same guy is following me on foot. … I yell for help. He runs away, toward his friend waiting on a motorcycle. I run behind him to try to take the license plate.

“Suddenly he stops and turns around, looks at me with such contempt, like he pities me. ‘Get lost.’ he says. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’

“That’s what gets me. He was so confident that a woman is helpless, that women can be abused with impunity.

“And he was right.

“Another time a letter comes from my son’s school. It was a thank-you letter sent by the principal to all the parents. But it was addressed only to my husband, saying ‘Dearest Father of so and so.’ There was no mention of the mother’s name, even though I am the one raising him; I am the one who is there [at the school] every other day talking to his teachers.

“I went to the principal and told him, ‘you could have at least addressed the letter to something like ‘Dear Parents.’ He wouldn’t hear any of it.

“Sometimes, after I’ve had some confrontation, some kind of debate with a man in public, I end up sitting at home scared and worried, worried that they come and take me away on some trumped up charge.

“This is a daily struggle. Even walking the streets alone with manto instead of chador [worn by the vast majority of Sabzevaran women] causes men to look at you like you’re a prostitute.

“If you so much as go to someone’s home and sit down and talk to the man of the house, his wife gets upset, like I am going to sleep with him.

“But the man is permitted to talk to as many women as he wishes to or even have a girlfriend and his wife is expected to keep quiet.

“Double-standards are everywhere. The woman gets half the inheritance of her brothers. If a woman kills a man on purpose, she is executed. But a man has to kill two women before he’s executed.”

Y, a college professor, agrees with much of what X says, but takes issue with her blaming the men.

“It’s the women who keep taking it; that’s why they are in the state they are in.

“Almost all the women I know behave like sheep. There are only two things they are interested in: cooking at home and going window shopping for gold jewelry. None are well-read; I know not a single woman who is well-read.

“I give you an example from my class: I tell my students to choose one among themselves as the representative of the class. There are 35 women in class and only ten men. Yet the women immediately turn to look at the men.

“I tell them, ‘There are three times as many as you. Why don’t you take charge? why do you keep expecting the men to take the initiative? But they just giggle.

“This is why they are treated the way they are. The man treats the woman badly because he already knows that she’ll take it. We simply don’t have any women who are well-educated and willing to fight to change the status quo.

I reminded him that it was an Iranian female lawyer who won a Nobel prize in 2003 for her human rights work.

“That’s one. That’s just one,” he answers.

I mention the Iranian woman who just a few weeks ago went into space abroad a Russian capsule.

“Okay, that’s two.”

I mention my own mother, who founded an NGO in the United States, or the woman we had seen on Voice of America television the day before, who had founded a couple of research institutes in the US and UK.

I ask X about the writing on her shirt: “Pimp My.”

“Do you know what a pimp is?” I ask, struggling to keep a straight face. When I tell her the meaning, everyone breaks up.

“Someone gave it to me as a gift; I never thought it would mean something like that,” she says.

Y doesn’t loose a beat.

“You see? You see? What did I tell you?” he bellows, pointing a finger at X. “She wears a shirt whose meaning she doesn’t even know. This is what I mean when I say women don’t even read.”

It’s nearly 5:30 pm, the sun has set and the azaneh ghoroub [it’s 27th day of Ramadan] from the downtown mosque seeps in through an open window.

The sky is silvery; the mountains surrounding this ancient desert town shimmer in a resplendent warm blue, reminding me of New Mexico’s magic. There’s a light cool breeze and the traffic below is slowly thinning as people rush home to eat.

Y is the only one among us who had fasted today and I realize that hunger probably contributed to his irritability with X. He sits down for a meal of Aab-goosht [stew of lamb] and the fresh Sabzevari bread he says he could never do without.

Y says he’ll never leave Sabzevar, to the chagrin of his Isfahani wife who says this town is “too limited” but “I will go wherever my husband goes.”

X now looks worn out and indifferent.

“It takes so much energy to stand up for your rights here,” she says plaintively, her eyes misty under the orange glow of the tungsten lights she’d just turned on.

She has something to look forward to, though. She’s taking language lessons in preparation for immigration to Holland, where she just spent two month admiring how “men choose for women exactly what they choose for themselves.”

“I am tired of waiting [for change]. I’m tired of fighting.”

Child Recycler

Abdulreza, 12, digs through garbage for recyclable plastics, in front of the exclusive Carat store, northern Tehran.

“I am Afghani!”

The government of Iran does not allow children of the undocumented Afghani refugees to attend the public school system.

Imam Khomeini & School Books

First page of Farsi Writing book for first graders:

“One of those close to Imam Khomeini recalls: one day Imam told me that ‘when I go to Hosseinieh to see people and speak, I think of children. I love children so much that if during speaking, a child cries or waves his hand for me, I loose my concentration and I think of that child.’”

The Day Imam Khomeini Came Home

Mehdi Shariati, 7, Village of Kharaghani, near Shahrood, NE Iran.

"I started school this year. I like it a lot because I’m in there with my cousin, who chases me on the way home.

"This is my drawing of the day Imam Khomeini came [to Iran from France in 1979]. That’s his plane and those are flowers falling to the ground. And those are mountains in the back."

Ten minutes of going through Mehdi’s notebooks was all it took to see why Mehdi more than likely is getting a better education than most American children. There are signs of a partnership between his teacher and his parents. There is the expectation that the his schooling continues at home.

Each and every page of his homework was signed, scored and commented by the teacher. The better work was stamped: "One Hundred Praises to My Good Son."

"They are under orders to check every page," Mehdi’s father, Abdul-Vahid Shariati says.
"There are even inspectors who come and check the notebooks at random to make sure the teachers are doing their work."

There was a hand-written message to Mehdi’s mother on top of one page, asking her to come to meet the teacher. Obviously, the teacher was confident that the mother goes through her son’s homework.

"The teachers ask the parents to come to school so they can teach the parents how to work with the kids at home. They want to make sure they teach the same way the kids are taught at school," Shariati said.

Isfahan: Did I Say Switzerland?

Chahar Bagh Avenue, left; Zayandeh Rud and the park the runs along it, right.

My first night in Isfahan, I broke free and set out on the streets on my own. Soon I was enthralled because I was constantly reminded of the Iran of my childhood—the Iran that I can no longer find in Tehran.

In the Chahar Bagh Avenue, the sidewalks are filled with jovial shoppers and the odor of hot food. People are not eyeing each other, not trying to constantly make a statement. It’s as if satellite TV never penetrated Isfahan’s atmosphere. I don’t see the same discontent I see in Tehran.

The streets are clean! The parks are well-tended. The traffic heavy but not nearly at Tehran’s infuriatingly deadlocked stage. Walking along Zayandeh Rud—the river that cuts through the city—I keep glimpsing slices of Geneva or Zurich. We were told later that “Isfahanis are unique among Iranians for taking care of their town.”

I can’t remember it was me or my father who first suggested that Isfahan wouldn’t be a bad place to move to permanently. But then we found out that others have had the same idea. Property prices here have skyrocketed, even at a higher rate than Tehran’s.

Isfahan: Si-O-Se Pol

There is something magical about Si-o-se Pol—literally, the bridge of 33, meant for its 33 arches. A book could be written about this 400-year-old architectural wonder. But I’m too busy walking the cobblestones in the cool of late autumn and relishing the beauty around me.

At night, there is an endless stream of strolling young people on Si-o-se Pol bantering and letting out guffaws. Boys and girls are dating—obviously, married people are never that chatty.

I felt like being in a European city, the combination of classical architecture and swarms of friendly people, even late into the night. I don’t think there is a place in the U.S. like that. I had countless conversations. I felt at home.

There is no garbage laying around. No charlatans peddling bootleg trash or faking tragedy. The contrast to Tehran is hard to forget.

In the daytime, people are marching resolutely toward work and school. But the women are not as painted-up as they are in Tehran. The men are less likely to affect importance with fancy cell phones and James Bond-esq poses.

People are more human here in Isfahan, their speech, in their eye-contact, in the inordinately long time they take to explain street directions multiple times before exclaiming a couple of extra goodbyes.

Isfahan: The Persian Mosque

Jamshid Arjmand, Ph.D.
From the article “An Image of Paradise,”
Shahrvand newspaper, Oct 12, 2006, Isfahan, Iran.

“The temple of the mind must exist in the sky, where one can spread wings and fly. Our mosques were created to serve as such a spiritual sanctuary.

“The pool is the heart of the mosque. It’s where the sky and the earth meet. It’s really a bright mirror.

“The iwan is a sort of reflection of the purgatory, where it is neither in the mosque or outside the mosque; neither hell or heaven.

“The kashi of the mosque is like skin to the body and each one is a beautiful work of art.

“The 40 pillars of shabestan—this many pillars are not required to hold up the ceiling. They are there to represent the inescapable fact that we’re all adrift in this world, in search of answers.

“The courtyards are so large to point to the immensity of the creation. Nothing in the mosque is without allusion to the creation and the things of erfan.

“In fact, nothing in the mosques of Isfahan is by accident. Isfahan is the reflection of all the elements of erfan.

“In fact, when you pass through Isfahan, you realize it is an image of paradise.”

"Hope is Better than Money"

Behrouz Arshidi, 24, street-side seller of pirated films in the Great Bazaar of Tehran

“I have a bachelor’s in accounting, but without proof of having done your military service, it is simply impossible to get a job.

“There are a lot of people with college degrees doing work like mine. I know of people with graduate degrees driving taxis or selling stuff on the side of the street.

“A possibility came up at a bank once. I was willing to do anything, even just serve tea. But even that fell through because they asked for the military service card.

“So I’m going to sell these films for a few more months, go do my military service for two years, and then get a regular job.

“I make 500,000 to 600,000 tomans a month [$543 to $652 USD] selling these films. The DVD I just sold you for 1500 [$1.63 USD], 60% of that is profit.

“Working at a bank, at a job in proportion to my education, I’d make about 300,000 [$326] a month. But it would be steady work. Selling films on the side of the street has no future. At any moment the cops could show up and put me away because I don’t have a permit.

“You also have to find a store that’s closed so you can stand in front of it. No one’s going to let you stand in front of their store [if they are present].”

“Absolutely anything you want is available in Iran. Anything you have in the West, we have here. So why would anyone want to move away?

“Nowhere in the world is business as profitable as it is here in Iran. If you have the initial investment, there is no end to the possibilities.

“My father, a real-estate broker, bought a piece of land and sold it a month later for ten times what he paid for. Where in the world can you do that?

“There are difficulties here but we overcome them because the Iranian has hope; he never gives up.

“Westerners lose hope very quickly. They lose a couple of guys and they’re all over themselves. You saw how we fought the [Iran-Iraq] war, didn’t you? They’d send 200 bullets at us. We’d send 201 guys forward. Two hundred would die, the last one finishes off the enemy.

“We have hope; we always have hope. That’s what counts.”

"I'll Never Forget My Mother"

Sharaum Yousefian, 40, driving instructor, Tehran, Iran.

“I tasted being well-off before the [1979] revolution.

“My father, a lawyer by training, was a colonel in the military and made good money. My mother opened a hair salon and made several times what my father did because she went for training to France and Italy. There was always a Mercedes and a BMW in front of the house.

“Then my father and mother divorced and things fell apart. All my siblings [who were younger than me] moved away with my father. My mother rolled over her car and became paralyzed from chest down; I was the only one who remained with her during the two years before her death.

“All we had was spent on her medical bills. Then the government would not let me stay with her. They said when she had her accident I was already 18, so they sent me to fight [in the Iran-Iraq War].

“You don’t know the hell I went through during that period. I was injured three times. I saw a friend eating next to me get shot in the head. When he fell, there was food pouring out of his mouth.

“Once we took my mother home, I was expecting her to be dead every single day that I came home. She had a button next to her bed with which she could open the door. I had my own keys, but I rang and waited for her to open the door because I couldn’t stand the idea of finding her dead.

“I would sweat profusely and feel so cold when I rang the door and waited. Then she’d open the door and all the tension would seep away.

“When she was gone, they told me she had to be buried quickly. I was 19 and the only family member at her burial. Everyone else was out of town and on their way to Tehran.

“The women at the cemetery washed her, wrapped her in white cloth, and asked for a family member to hold her head to place her into the grave. I was the only mahram person around so I had to do it. I literally held my mother’s head and helped place her in the ground. And it was first time I had ever seen an open grave.

“I didn’t want to bury her. For a long time people were criticizing me for not getting her a head stone; that would have made it feel too final. I kept wishing I could keep her at home.

“I couldn’t cry. The only thing that came up was something like hick-ups. Then came the ceremony for her third [day after death] at the mosque. When I heard the mullah announce her name, suddenly I broke like a dam. But I also started bleeding through the nose. They took me to two doctors before they managed to stop the bleeding. I was crying the whole time. The doctors said it was from the pent-up stress. They said what saved my life was being able to finally cry.

“I already had decided to kill myself. On her seventh, after all the ceremonies were over, I took a pack of shaving blades and went to her grave around midnight. I kissed her grave and told her I was about to join her.

“Just as I was about to cut my wrist, I felt someone grabbing my shoulders. It was my friend, Bahraum. ‘You can do as you wish. I won’t stop you,’ he said. ‘Just give me five minutes to talk to you.’

“He asked what was the sin of my siblings to also lose a brother. Then he gave me a letter from a woman I had loved but her family would not let her marry me. She had mailed the letter to him to be sure that I got it.

“I went to live with my father in Isfahan but soon it became clear I wasn’t welcome. I’d go to take a shower and his [new] wife would turn off the hot water and announce, ‘it’s broken’.”

“When I left my dad’s, a beat-up car was all I had in the entire world and I lived in it for a year.

“Then I went to Kermanshah—I told you I have a Kurdish strain in me. The Kurds revere the dead. If the dead person was young and had a child, they really love that child.

“It was there that I met my wife. She was my mother’s cousin. I was only 23 and way too young to get married. But I saw this young, innocent thing and I knew I wanted her as my companion.

“We’ve gone through a lot since then; very difficult times. But we survived.

“I truly love my wife. In the mornings she wakes up my son at 6 and get him out the door by 6:20. Then she wakes me up and brings breakfast to bed. I don’t know where I’d be without her.

“She makes between 400,000 to—on a very good month—600,000 tomans [$434 to $652 USD] a month at the beauty salon she works at. With my 200,000 [$217 USD] a month it’s enough for us to make ends meet.

“We even have a little saved into which we dip every time there’s a guest.

“It should be hard for me to be living in someone else’s property and pay rent—after all the wealth I tasted when I was a kid.

“But then I’ve already tasted having a lot of things. I can live with not having that anymore.

“I can never forget my mother. I still talk to her when I feel lonely.

“A few years ago I was in a driving accident and the right side of my body was paralyzed. I was bedridden.

“Then one night she came to my dream. She put my head on her knees, carassed my neck and shoulders, and her hands through my hair. ‘Why is my son in pain?’ she asked. ‘You can walk, I know you can walk. Come on, just try to walk.’

“When I woke up, I tried moving. Then I sat up and finally I started walking. I screamed for my wife, “I can walk! I can walk!”

"I'll live here all my life"

Looking down into a time that is no longer, from the top of Maglesee Bazaar, Isfahan, Iran.

Omeed Hosseini, 18, apprentice at father’s socks and underwear store, Maglesee Bazaar, Isfahan, Iran.

For a fee of 2,000 tomans (about $2.10 USD), the entrepreneuring Omeed provides a special tour from the top of the Maglesee Bazaar, free exercise included.

Past a couple of rough-hewn curtains in the back, up a pitch-dark hallway, on hands and knees on a bed frame serving as a ladder, plus a crawl over a couple more walls, and suddenly I was walking the roof of the bazaar, spying on shoppers from the skylight holes in the ceiling, and aw-oohing over the spectacular scenes of Isfahan’s ancient skyline.

The best part was still coming. Over a few more roofs and a tip-toe past a hair-raising ledge, I was looking down into a house right out of the 15th-century Iran, before renovation.

It reminded of the old New Orleans, a la Street Car Named Desire.

“It has a long history,” Omeed said. “My grandfather told me that Afghans, when they invaded Isfahan, they forced Iranians out of this house and took it over.

“Those big containers you see down there on the right, they used those in the old days to make halim. The other big jar you see on the left, Isfahanis used them to make wine.

“I rather live in a house like this—cleaned up, of course—than in a fancy Tehran high-rise. Life is real in a house like this. The sounds, the smells. I love the smell of kauh-gel after it rains and it’s wet.

Your lift is ready, sir; inside Maglesee Bazaar (located adjacent to the Jame Mosque); roof view at the back of the Mosque

“Here, in smaller towns, you eat a lot better. You can get country naan, roghaneh boomi, fresh yogurt. You can’t get things like that in Tehran, can you?

“I know [the stereotype is] that most Iranian kids watch satellite TV and they fall in love with everything foreign and then suddenly all they can think of is moving to the West.

“I don’t. I’ll be taking over my father’s shop someday and living here all my life. I think life is much more real over here.”

"I'm Happy Regardless"

Mohammed Kalati, 58, Tehran taxi driver for 20 years.

“I was into agriculture and freighting fruit when I came to Tehran 35 years ago from Khorasan. One year I lost a lot of money so I got myself a taxi.

“It’s survival but I have no complaints. I’ve been to Mecca twice with my wife; I’ve been to Karbala and I’ve been to Syria [all on pilgrimages].

“From Karbala I came back with a stack of cash, thinking I was about to go back and spend it with my wife. But [the U.S. invasion of Iraq] started and now I assume all that cash is worthless because it has Saddam’s picture on it. I’ll keep it; maybe someday it’ll have some other kind of value.

“I have bought a car for my son and his wife, gave him his own apartment, gave him cash to get started, and even on some months, his mother doesn’t let them pay for water and electricity. That makes me feel fulfilled.

“All my four daughters are married off. All are productive, school teachers, so on.

“I can’t get insurance because they say I’m too old now. That bothers me but I refuse to worry about it too much. I am thankful. I thank God everyday.

“I worked hard for what I have and after 40 years one should have a little bit of something to live on. But I know others who started out with me and they are still renting and living hand to mouth, because they were into partying. I was careful; I saved my money and invested wisely.

“Everything that happens is God’s will, so why worry? Those who worry, those who complain, they surprise me. They are not logical.

“Yes, people are under a lot of pressure. There’s a lot to complain about. My sister’s son has to pay 10 million tomans [$10,869 USD] just for the right to move into a rented apartment. Can you believe it?

“When I was young, you could do your traveling, your marrying, your raising of children and still have something left over. Not today.

“But tell me, what is the use of complaining? What is that going to accomplish?

“They say, ‘the one who giveth teeth’—meaning God—‘also giveth bread’. God provides. There is no reason to lust for more.

“May you live to be 100 years old and every one of those years is productive. May you find happiness every moment of your life. Know that my prayers are with you.

"Iran is Safe"

BM, cashier at a kabobi, Tehran

“My people are all from Baku [Azerbaijan], although I was born on the Iran side of the border. In this place, we’re all Turks; Turks from Tabriz, Azerbaijan, Ardebil. We all understand each other.

“There was a time that the border between Iran and Azerbaijan was open and I went to see Baku. It was clean, nice.

“But I rather live here in Iran. Yes, it is nicer there and more freedoms. But you could be walking down the street and somebody shoots you just because you made a joke. Everyone is carrying a gun. It’s not safe.

“Here in Iran, there’s safety. You walk down the street no one does anything to you.

“The only problem here is the difficulty in making money. If you have money, you can live very well.

“If I had the money I’d live out in the country. Tehran’s air eventually kills your body. It’s terrible. But living out in the country, you can live pretty well on not that much money.”

Q: Does your restaurant serve good food?

“Not really.”

"My Greatest Loss"

“In Iran, you don’t just marry a woman; you marry her family too.”

Ahmad Mirza-Khani, 29, taxi driver, Isfahan, Iran.

“I’m from the countryside, a village near Daroon, the western-most point of the province of Isfahan. We’re way up in the mountains; you can get 1.5 meters of snow up there.

“I used to be in farming. But like so many others one year the crops failed and I just gave up. I came to the city [Isfahan] and bought this car to haul passengers.

“The problem with this kind of living, though, is that I keep meeting women who end up taking instead of paying. Instead of taking them to their destination, I end up spending half the day at restaurants buying them ice-cream.

“It doesn’t go further, though. I just don’t want it to go further. And in any case, something mysterious always happens that blocks the way. It’s really strange.

“The greatest loss of my life is losing my wife [to divorce]. For five years we lived like two love birds. I don’t think we fought for so much as 10 minutes in that entire time.

“But her mother started interfering when I had heart surgery and we had to move back to the village to make ends meet. Her mother felt her daughter should live in the city. ‘Why didn’t you tell us you had heart trouble?’ she kept asking. I even took her to my doctor to tell her I didn’t have heart trouble before we got married.

“But the last time my wife went to visit her parents, her mother didn’t let her come back. It was painful.

“I would go to get her back, but too many things have been said and done. Under the spell of her family, she called me names, even smacked my face in front of the judge. She lost in court because she got caught in her own lies and now she is sending indirect messages that she wants me back.

“But I figure if she fell under the spell once, it could happen again. I want peace in my life, not fighting with her family.

“In Iran, you don’t just marry a woman; you marry her family too. In a way, I was married to her mother too. Ironically, immediately after she took back her jaheezeh, her father, who was against the divorce, had a heart attack and died. It should’ve been the mother.

“Iranians hold grudges. Once it’s past a certain point, they won’t be civil. They become revengeful. They won’t forgive and forget.

“I did some stupid things too. I found out her sister-in-law was constantly on the phone with others once her husband left the house. I confronted her and told her not to do it again. But then she went and told the opposite to her husband and my wife’s family. Now I was known as the cheater. Anonymous people kept calling my wife and bothering us. My wife believed them not me.

“My wife was only 14 when I married her. I was 23. She knew absolutely nothing. I had to teach her everything. I had read a lot all my life and knew a few things about psychology. I taught her how to deal with people, how to act in company of others, even how to sew and cook. I knew all that already from living on my own.

“Just when she was well-taught and ready for life, I lost her.

“And over what? Because her mom wanted the city for her daughter. But now her daughter is in the village without a husband and I’m back in the city all alone. Talk about irony.

“Being single has its charms. In America, I’m sure you have a lot of fun. But no matter how much fun you have, someday you realize that all along you lacked something precious—being part of a family. We’re better off being with others. It’s in our nature.

“Instead of thinking of the externalities when choosing a wife, try to find a friend, a companion, someone who’s there when you come home tired and upset, and she sits next to you and asks, ‘Ali Agha, tell me about you day. What is it that’s bothering you?’”

"Nothing like Lust for Power"

Akbar Moradi, 38, selling pantyhose in front of the Carat store, on the exclusive Africa Ave., north Tehran. The woman in the back? She wouldn’t give me the time of the day.

“I live in Akbar-Abad, way on the southside. It takes me two hours to get up here. I leave home at 7 and ride two buses to get here. I get home around 8.”

“I make about 4,000 to 5,000 tomans [$4.34 to $5.34 USD] a day. I survive. I got two school-age children at home.”

“I went to school until the 8th grade. I was working at a tomato-paste factory until the drout put them out of business eight years ago. That was the last time I had real employment.

“Getting a job? It’s impossible. If you don’t have a college degree, it’s a non-starter.

“Let me tell you this: there is nothing like the lust for power. Lust for a woman, well, that can be satisfied. But lust for power—there is no end to it. It cannot be satisfied. People will say anything; do anything to keep their power.”

"You Can't Stop the Spread of Knowledge"

nay-anbaan on the Si-o-se pol bridge, Isfahan, Iran.” title=”Alireza Najafi, 40, playing his self-made nay-anbaan on the Si-o-se pol bridge, Isfahan, Iran.” vspace=”10” hspace=”10” align=”right”>
Alireza Najafi, 40, playing his self-made nay-anbaan on the Si-o-se pol bridge, Isfahan, Iran.

“The nay comes from Iranians. The bag part we got from the Portuguese when they came to Iran.”

“Growing up in Abadan, I heard it played at weddings and ceremonies. It was a local instrument; you couldn’t buy it in the stores. People who played it, made it themselves. Nobody outside Khuzestan knew about it.

“The sound stayed in my head. Back then, when half the country was illiterate, people didn’t value knowledge of music for their children. If a family allowed it, it was because they wanted to hear it at home just for themselves.

“But to play for other people and do it for a living? That was shameful. It was unthinkable. You had to find a hole somewhere to play the flute for yourself.

“When I was at the front during the [Iran-Iraq] war, sometimes I was desperate to find just a tiny reed somewhere to make myself a flute, but even that was impossible sometimes.

“The war dispersed Khuzestanis all over the country and so nay-anbaan is now known. You can even buy it.

“I had to make my own, though. An artist always has to make his own to get the sound right.

“I don’t know any notes, so I could never call myself an ostaad. I just go by the ear.

“Things got complicated with my job [as a welder] seven or eight years ago and I’ve been playing in the streets ever since. Music takes you to another place. It’s about the heart not the mind. The heart holds all the secrets.

“Here’s how it works: when I play the flute alone, there are tiny moments of silence, correct? It’s because I’m out of breath. You can’t do anything about that.

“But with a bag full of air, the spaces are gone. It’s like your car is running and you keep driving —the sound never stops—and so you go places you can’t otherwise go.

You can’t stop the spread of knowledge. Someday this planet will be one because of knowledge.

“Early after the revolution, music was banned. You had to find secret places to play. Persian classical music took a dive. Only people like Shajarian kept it alive but only from outside the country.

“Then slowly things changed and little by little music came back. First they allowed it 40-percent of the time and then 60-percent and then 80-percent. Now they hold music festivals and invite people from all over the world.

“Like some Africans who came here with their bongos and we had a blast together. It was a sight to see. We couldn’t speak a word to each other but we understood each other.

“You can’t stop the spread of knowledge. Someday this planet will be one because of knowledge.

“There are many many unknown musicians in the countryside that are as good as any, some with mind-bending abilities, things you would not think were possible. No one outside their region knows them, though, and when they die, their ability goes with them.

“From the books I’ve read, I admire Americans’ ability to summarize knowledge. Us Iranians have a lot of knowledge; everything there is to know is contained in our culture and religion. But it’s expressed with many turns. It’s not easy to get.

“The Americans have this ability to express the very essence of knowledge concisely, especially when it comes to what makes people tick. I admire that.

“I also admire the fact that they can freely write it down without any repercussions. Not only that, they receive praise from their fellow countrymen for their words.

“Democracy, if I understand it correctly, is humane rule by the humane. The kind of inspiration comes only from God.

“I’m a homeless, illiterate man and then someone with your class comes from America and pays attention to me. That’s an honor for me.

“I wish you only the best. Remember this wherever you go: some things cannot be expressed by words. You have to understand it through the heart. And then sometimes one sprouts wings and flies.

“Also this: whatever you think, what you put out, the society reflects back to you. It’s not what’s out there that matters; it’s what inside you.”

Q: Where are you going to sleep tonight?

“You ask too many questions!”

The Persian Carpet

Mohammed Reza Rasoulian, carpet arts student, Islamic Azad University of Sabzevar

“My family has been in the rug business for 40 years. My father would not let any of his sons pursue anything other than rug business.

“I am the first in my family who has gone to college to learn about rugs. Things have changed. We have to bring science into the business.

“Before the [1979] revolution, Iran’s rug business was number one in the world [in terms of total sales]. Today, it is 17th or 18th .

“One reason is the culture of Iranians. As soon as they find a market for their product, instead of improving the product to stay ahead of competition, they cut corners to increase their profits.

“Iranians began exporting garbage so about eight or nine years ago the government passed a law requiring the bad carpets to be separated from the good ones before they leave the country. But that law was never enforced.

“Also different areas of the country began copying popular designs to benefit from their reputation but in the process ruined their reputation too.

“There are Persian carpets so poorly made that when you rub your hands on them, they feel like synthetic rugs.

“Today people don’t weave carpets unless they are truly desperate. We have a strange situation now. Both the supply and the wages for carpet weavers are low. And it is hard on the businessman because our money is tied up in the market for six months before we see it again.

Clouds

I can’t get over how vivid the clouds are in this part of the country, in the Shahrood area, 400 kilometers east of Tehran. I am watching them all the time.

Clouds are constantly moving over the mountains and into the valley below.

There’s even a village here called “the village of cloud,” visible from the road.

My father says no matter what the weather is like, there’s always a white puff hovering over it.

Clouds III (110kb)