A THOUSAND AND ONE IRANIAN DELIGHTS
By Ruth Falconer
John O’Groat Journal, UK
Published: 14 September, 2007
THE wind snatched my headscarf and carried it away.
Aghast, I raced after it, grabbed it and tied it back on with my
bumbling hands as quickly as I could. I looked around anxiously. No-one
in the smoggy streets seemed to have noticed. Heaving a sigh of relief,
I dodged my way through the unrelenting traffic to meet my friend Reza.
It was my first day in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic
of Iran. Reza, whom I had met in Kyrgyzstan, had been kind enough to
invite me to visit and had arranged for me to stay with his friends and
colleagues around the country during my one-month trip. I was a little
apprehensive about going to Iran because I had applied for my visa when
the Revolutionary Guard had "kidnapped" British sailors – how would
I be received as a lone female Westerner? I need not have worried.
As Reza had to work, his mother and sister adopted me and took me on
a tour of Tehran. The decadent palaces of the shahs were now museums
to a foregone age that had ended with the 1979 revolution. Each was
filled with incredible masterpieces, lush lawns and neat gardens with
Persian fables depicted in vivid tiles.
In the Golestan Palace there was a young girls’ school trip. Clutching
Barbie schoolbags they gazed attentively at whatever their teacher
instructed them to and skipped hand in hand around the gardens,
just like any other children. Except they were wearing white hijabs
to cover their hair. Islamic law states that, after the age of nine,
girls should cover up when outside of their home. Older, conservative
women wear the black chador, holding it closed with teeth or hands
(the chador, meaning "tent" in Farsi, is just a big piece of cloth),
but the Iranian reality is that women have bright headscarves barely
on their heads, hair carelessly flowing out, loud make-up, tight
jackets, increasingly risque hemlines and stilettos that would make
Naomi Campbell gasp.
I headed 400 kilometres south to Esfahan, where Reza had arranged
for me to stay with Faridae, who was 25 and an accountant. Iran’s bus
system is incredibly cheap (petrol is subsidised by the government),
efficient and comfortable. Men and women are segregated and snacks
and drinks are included in the ticket price, which is most welcome for
the massive distances covered. A former capital, it was known as "half
the world" in Persian times because of its cultural and architectural
diversity and wonder, including its stunning bridges. In the centre
lies Imam Square, formerly Shah Square, which has a palace and two
stunning mosques, the most beautiful being the Lotfallah. Originally
for the shah’s harem to worship in, the cream tiles of its domed
roof change colour to reflect the mood of the sun throughout the day,
contrasting beautifully with the rich greens and blues inside. Still
a place for contemplation, a young woman was sitting down on the
mosque floor vigorously typing into her laptop, oblivious to the slow,
shuffling gait of tourists.
The Armenian quarter, New Jolfa, was founded in 1606 when the
shah kidnapped the entire population of Jolfa, famed for their
artistic skills, near the Armenian border and relocated them to
Esfahan. The area is a series of twisting lanes with distinctly
Christian architecture, in particular the striking Vank cathedral
bearing grisly images of saints being tortured, and containing one
of the world’s smallest bibles, weighing just 0.7 grams.
To round off the day’s sightseeing, Faridae and I went to an old
teahouse that was straight out of 1001 Arabian Nights overlooking Imam
Square. The smoke from hookah pipes twirled and vaporised into the
twinkling night as she told of the frustrations she felt living in
Iran, particularly of her lack of freedom to travel: the permission
of a father, brother or husband is needed before a woman can go
anywhere. All of the women I spoke to felt this way, and there is
an increasingly powerful movement among both men and women to allow
equal rights.
Friday is the Muslim day of rest, and when almost the entire population
of Iran goes for a picnic. Faridae had to work, but her friend Atifeh,
keen to practise her English, invited me to join her and her family in
the park. The park was packed with groups dining on enormous banquets
of roasts, breads, rice, salads and ice-creams whilst supping tea
from large urns they had taken from their kitchens. I was amazed
at the sheer quantity of food that was consumed and how on earth it
fitted into the car. Sitting in the shade to get protection from the
fierce sun, Atifeh’s family began to talk about their strong dislike
of their government, the current political situation and fears about
an American attack. I felt great pangs of sadness and guilt when
they asked me what I thought was going to happen, a question I would
be asked many times. Potentially my government could drop bombs on
these moderate people who had shown me nothing but incredible warmth,
respect and kindness, wishing nothing in return.
My next stop was east in the oasis city of Yazd, where I was to stay
with Leila, a secretary for a tile manufacturing company, who was
fiercely independent and drove faster than Schumacher. Yazd is the
heart of Zoroastrianism, the first religion to embrace the dualist
concept of good and evil and a single god, Ahura Mazda. Zoroastrian
symbols permeate the city: two huge "towers of silence" sit brooding
on the outskirts of town, and an eternal flame blazes within a fire
temple in the town centre. Worshippers believed a dead body to be
unclean, and to bury it in the earth would pollute it, so the body
would be placed atop a tower under the watch of a priest, who would
observe which eye the waiting vultures plucked first. If it was the
right eye, the soul would fare well; if the left then certain doom.
Lotfallah, Esfahan.
Going still further south to Kerman – famed for pistachios – Bijan,
a computer analyst, and his wife Marian and their daughter were
kind enough to put me up for a few days. Like everyone in Iran,
they constantly fed me huge plates of food, cakes and sweets. From
breakfast till the late 10pm Iranian dinners I could feel my body
crying out for mercy from the gastronomic onslaught. Their English was
quite rudimentary, but Bijan’s cousin Mohammad was fluent and more than
happy to take time off from work to show me around. He was the manager
of an insurance company, but had been the BBC’s translator after the
2003 Bam earthquake when 26,000 were killed. Bam was renowned for
its enormous citadel, the biggest mud-brick structure in the world,
which had collapsed in the disaster. Mohammad hadn’t been there since,
and was shocked at how it had changed. He recalled that when he was
young it would take four hours to walk around.
It now took four minutes. The site is being rebuilt with the help of
UNESCO but will never achieve its past glory.
Shiraz, brimming with rose-filled gardens whose scents permeate the
air, is the birthplace of the famous grape, and of Iran’s most famous
poets Hafez and Sade – the Shakespeares of their time. Indeed it is
said that Hafez is more revered and read than the Koran, and people are
to be found in every park engrossed in his works. A young family, one
of whom spoke English, allowed me to be their guest. Ali was a musician
with the Shiraz symphony orchestra and Firozeh was a new mother to
10-month-old Dorsa and had studied English at university. Dorsa and I
were at the same Farsi level, much to the mirth of everyone else. We
would both point at things, delighted that we knew what they were
called, grinning widely at the praise this received.
The main tourist draw in Shiraz is the ancient ruined city of
Persepolis, which dates from 500 BC and was ransacked by Alexander
the Great. The grand stairway leading up to the huge Gate of Nations
has shallow steps so that dignitaries could glide up with their robes
flowing majestically behind them. The immense marble walls of the
complex are adorned with reliefs of subject countries bringing gifts
to the Persian king, legendary battles and elaborate mythical beasts.
The former grand halls and temples, full of cuneiform (one of the
oldest alphabets in the world) tablets, are protected by huge statues
of bulls and griffins that are still awe-inspiring. Even at this
tourist site, locals, a little shyly, would stop you to ask if you
needed any help, to welcome you to Iran or to invite you to dinner
at their house.
Every week Ali and Firozeh had a dinner party with their friends,
most of them also in the Shiraz symphony. The guests brought their
instruments rather than an illegal bottle of wine, and the evening was
spent singing and dancing to Iranian songs. It ended in great laughter
as they tried to remember the words to the only English song they knew:
"Hotel California". I couldn’t remember the words either.
I took off my headscarf as I left Iran and entered Armenia, the first
country to declare itself Christian. A dour Russian with bleached
hair and a skirt up to her oxters glared at me while her colleague
scowlingly gave me a visa. I had not even left the border town and
I was feeling nostalgic about saying farewell to such a fascinating
place. My Iranian companions were not. They were already in shorts
and T-shirts and filling their bellies with vodka.
* Ruth Falconer, from Wick, travelled to Iran after working for a
year in Kyrgyzstan where she taught English. En route to Iran she
spent some time in Uzbekistan, and an account of her experiences
there appeared in the John O’Groat Journal on August 24.