Iran. Part II. CitiesMap
February I had expected the country to be similar to Turkey or Azerbaijan, only more ancient, more interesting, and richer in detail. Alas. Iranian cities are as boring and lacking in variety as Iranian cuisine. Alas. There are very few actual relics of the past here. A couple of mosques, a couple of bridges, that’s about it. All of them look like modern replicas, like the Golden Gate in Kiev or the Saddam-era edifices in Babylon. Alas. TehranMapA large, characterless city.  It’s probably more cheerful here when the trees are green.  The bazaar.  Mosque this way.  There are a few pretty manhole covers here and there.  Tactile pavers for the blind run right along the center of the sidewalk (like in Japan).  How many times do I have to repeat—no parking!  A fire hydrant.  A box junction (hello, USA, Northern Cyprus, Romania, Hong Kong, Belgrade, and Bogota!).  The transportation system is very developed. Traffic is very heavy. Special displays on the street show current air pollution levels, broken down into chief parameters: ozone, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, etc.  Traffic lights with a countdown timer.  Cross at the green, not in between.  A maintenance worker is lugging replacement lights.  The city has implemented a bus rapid transit system (see Curitiba, Guatemala City, Lima, Quito, and so on) to attempt to lessen the horrible traffic jams.  Every regular bus stop has a fun PSA about the advantages of public transportation over personal vehicles.  All the bus stops are illuminated. A feast for the eyes.  A dumpster.  A dumpster in a special decorative parking bay.  Cars covered with striped jackets line the perimeter of some sort of lot.  A parking meter.  A machine gun in the Persian style.  Iran launched a monkey into space just the other day. An inflatable model of a spaceship is tied to a minaret.  The legs are the only tongue-in-cheek remnant of a former monument to some sheikh (compare to the feet in Baghdad).  The palaces of the last dynasty have been turned into a museum. The most boring, lackluster, dreary military museum in the world. The room’s floor displays a terrain map, there’s a military serviceman of some kind sitting at a desk by the wall, and on the table next to him is a giant computer with a prehistoric monitor and speakers. This is the music player.  Night life.  Festive revolutionary decorations.  A view of the city.  ShirazMapThe famous eponymous grape variety was once grown here and made into delicious wine. Delicious wine is still made here today, only illicitly. The QR codes don’t scan.  Part of the riverbed has been turned into a road used during the dry season.  A street in the old part of the city.  A bus stop.  A street corner.  A fire hydrant.  Shiraz is home to the most massive surveillance camera poles in the world.  A public restroom.  Every tree has a nearby shop owner’s mop drying on it.  Let’s take a stroll through the city and see its inhabitants. A furniture store with armchairs of a bizarre design.  A bakery.  Second-hand Persian carpets for sale.  A garbage truck assembled on the base of a pickup truck.  Costumed peasants make crepes for show.  Gangsta kids at a poetry club for gangstas.  A shop that either sells or buys mysterious scraps.  PersepolisMapThe only sight worth seeing in Iran. A palace complex for receptions and ceremonies built by the Persian king Darius the Great and destroyed by Alexander the Great in 330 BC.  The grand entrance is still fairly intact.   Seryozha 1928, M. Vanyashin 1922, A. Sultanov 1900—the autographs of my fellow countrymen on the ancient ruins are now also a protected part of history. The nearby necropolis with kings’ tombs carved into the rock face is also interesting due to its scale, beauty, and degree of intactness.  IsfahanMapAnother large and boring city.  All right, so it has one giant old square with equally old mosques (hello, Samarkand!).  Busloads of people come to see it.  But there isn’t really anything to see. Syria, Jordan, or Morocco are all five hundred times more interesting and full of life.  Young women who haven’t yet saved up enough for nose jobs make surprisingly gaudy embossed metal trays. Giggles, hammering, a few steamed turnips that the boss brought as a snack.  An electrical box.  Electronics for sale.  Pipes of various diameters for sale.  Fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice for sale.  Medical offices.  Women’s pants for sale.  A vehicle traffic light.  A pedestrian light.  The city’s main distinctive detail is the lollipop-shaped trash can on a stick.  There are also a couple of bridges which are allegedly four hundred years old. They look like an army construction crew rebuilt them in the early 80s.  Iranian antiquities.  KashanMapThe suburbs. This could just as easily be Aykhal.  An arrow composed of three traffic lights.  An air-conditioned bus stop.  A wall advertisement.  AbyanehMapAn old Iranian village.  One old woman.  Three old women.  They used to put two different knockers on front doors. The thin and straight one is for men, the round one for women. Knock-knock. It was possible to determine who’s there from inside.  An old man and an old woman.  QomMapA monorail is being built in the holy city of Qom. There’s nothing else to say about this place.  * * * Well, how about some more kebab then? |
