Iran, The Last Great Nomads

ÖZET

Beginning of the journey in Tehran (8 millions of inhabitants).Two important monuments: The Azadi Tower build in 1971, 45 meters high and recovered with 25.000 marble sheets and the Palace of Golestan, a royal residence with a beautiful garden.A short visit at the bazaar (a very important place of trades) and we go to Sad Abad, summer residences of the Pahlavi dynasty.Then we travel to the Tochal mountain (The Tochal peak is 3.964 meters high): a ski resort with cable car and chairlifts.In the same mountain range of the Alborz there are also Dizin, Shemshak and Darbandsar, other ski resorts. Next stop: Qazvin, with the Imamzadeh Hossein, a very important shrine for the Shia Muslims (the tomb and mausoleum of the son of a famous imam).Qazvin was also capital of the Persian Empire in the 16th century.We go further to the north and reach the Caspian Sea: Bandar-e-Anzali is a port with trade activities and Iranian caviar production.We travel to the Province of Gilan where farmers produce rice and black tea (we see how the tea leaves are harvested, dried and fermented): we go to the typical village of Masouleh on the slopes of the mountains: there people have breakfast with tea and flat bread: the blacksmith of the village repairs the agricultural tools. Later we travel to Isfahan: the Khaju Bridge with its 24 spans, the great square "Nash-e Jahan" and the great mosque of Isfahan (Unesco world heritage site), we see another bridge, the Si-o-see-pol with its 33 spans and finally the Ali Qapu Palace.We visit the bazaar of Isfahan (spices,jewelries, carpets), we visit a tea house in which the men drink tea and smoke the nargile); we meet a man who makes the drawings for the carpet producer; then female weavers are weaving a 25 square meters carpet (a three years work).We go to a Zurkhanah (traditional Iranian gymnasium,called also House of Strength) where men are practicing an Iranian martial art and later we go the a new museum of Iranian music: there are about 300 music instruments coming from all Iran. We travel to the center of Iran, a mountain where the Bakhtiari people live: these nomad families have left their winter quarters and after a week of travel they are on their summer quarters where they breed sheep, goats and horses.For their breakfast the drink black tea and eat flat bread.Then we go to the South of Iran, we see the Zoroastrian citadel of Bam and the surrounding mud buildings. In Yazd , one of the oldest town of Middle East we see the Jameh Mosque, a Zoroastrian temple and a pastry shop (baklawas).Yazd is the city of the windcatchers or wind towers, traditional architectural elements used to create cross ventilation and passive cooling. Next stop, Persepolis build by the emperor Darius (palaces, temples) : this town had about two hundred years of life and then Alexander the Great looted the town.In Shiraz we go to the tomb of the poet Hafez , to the Mosque Nasir-o-Molk with its beautiful stained glasses and to the Karim Khan Citadel build by the Zand dynasty. We return to the mountains near Shiraz where the Quasqai nomad people are living: they speak a Turkish language and breed sheep and goats.

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