"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.”