Author Archives: Jeff C

Iran: Blue Tiles of Isfahan

November 18, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off

In the time period roughly between Christopher Columbus and George Washington, early-day Iranians were on the other side of the world doing some pretty impressive things with blue and yellow tile.  The city of Isfahan was the capital of Persia during the Safavid Dynasty in the early 16th to 18th Centuries.  Today it still shows off some of Iran’s greatest architecture.

Domed ceilings of the Lotfallah Mosque (gold, below) and Shah Mosque (blue, above). The Shah Mosque’s blue dome is 150 feet high.

Four hundred years ago, the Lotfallah Mosque was reserved exclusively for the ladies of Shah Abbas’ harem. But today even gawking Americans can go inside and get some pictures of its amazing golden dome. Lotfallah anchors the east side of Naqsh-e Jahan Square (aka Imam Square) in Isfahan — the second largest public square in the world (behind Tienamen in China). Just as it did back then, the square also has a king’s palace on its west side, a grand public mosque on the south end, and the city’s Grand Bazaar to the north, though the 17th Century polo field has been replaced by sidewalks and fountains. The whole place is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and rightly so. The big Shah Mosque is all blue, and it’s arguably the most impressive piece of architecture in existence from that era.

Isfahan has a population of about 1.5 million.   In the 16th and 17th Centuries, it was the capital of Persia and headquarters of the Safavid Dynasty.   It’s been a center for rug making and trading and other elaborate artisans ever since. I bought a couple of smallish rugs myself and hauled them back to America.

 As you’ve probably noticed, a huge portion of the decorative tile in Iran is blue. “Why all the blue?” I asked.  I got three different answers, and I assume each one is partly true. #1: Because minerals were available in the area’s mines (cobalt and arsenic, for example) that were great pigments for making lovely blue and yellow ceramic tile. #2: Because blue is the color of heaven (Apparently they know this somehow). #3: Because water is blue, and when you live in the desert water is a very big obsession.

In that vein, there  were a couple of famous bridges in town I was looking forward to seeing. But it turns out that late October is part of the dry season in the deserts of Iran. The river had not a single drop of water, so the bridges looked a little odd.  Too bad they didn’t cover them with blue tiles.

You can take a carriage ride around Naqsh-e Jahan Square. (And no, that’s not a normal mode of transport in Iran; they seem to mostly just drive small white cars.)

 

Restoration work on the blue dome of the Shah Mosque.

Lotfallah Mosque at night. It’s unusual because it has no minarets for a “call to prayer.” They weren’t needed because the mosque was private — reserved for the Shah’s family and harem, apparently.

 

 

The Jameh Mosque of Isfahan, mostly hidden in the Grand Bazaar and overshadowed by the fancier mosques on the Square.  Jameh was built in bits and pieces over the course of 1200 years.

 

Allahverdi Khan Bridge (aka the Bridge of 33 Spans) was built in 1600. At other times of year, water flows through all those spans — which would surely make for a better picture!  The bridges are a popular hangout for old and young.  One group of young ladies insisted I join them for tea before I could take their pictures.  I wasn’t sure if the old guy below was responsible for that geometric figuring on the column he was leaning against.  But I doubt it.

 

Water spigot at an old Isfahan public bath-house.

Spiral stairway in the Ali Qapu Palace on the big square in Isfahan.  Shahs and Sultans have been climbing these stairs (often for a better view of the polo games below) since the late 1500s.

 

Iran: Chadors and Other Bazaar Sights

November 16, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off

(Forgive me:  I can’t resist the appeal of the bizarre/bazaar pun.)

Merchandise on display at women’s clothing stores gives a hint of what’s under all those long black chadors.

They do have a few shopping malls and supermarkets in Iran, but mostly people buy their “stuff” in bazaars and small shops. Different sections tend to specialize in certain types of goods – one area will have vegetables or fish, another spices or hardware, and others focus on textiles or clothing. If you want to see and interact with real people in Iran, you’ll probably head for the local bazaar.

But the bazaars aren’t just retail shops; behind the scenes is wholesaling, warehousing, and even some of the manufacturing or cooking. The Grand Bazaar in Tehran is said to be the hub for a huge percentage of commerce in the whole country.

 

 

A young merchant in a Tehran bazaar, right, selling cooked beets to chador-clad female customers.  

 

Fruits and vegatables at a Tehran bazaar.

 

Most bazaar merchants are men, even in shops where most customers are women.

 

 

Many bazaars are historical sites. If you can see past the bright lights, the brightly colored fabrics and the vegetables, you sometimes see old facades and ceilings that are hundreds of years old. Often, just around a quieter corner you’ll see a rug warehouse or an ancient “caravanserai,” where camel caravans once paused for he night or arrived with goods to sell at the bazaar.

 

Mother and baby at sidewalk fabric shop in Shiraz.

 

One consistently striking feature of the bazaars is the women’s clothing on display. Modern tight jeans, lavish colorful and sequined gowns, stilettos, racy lingerie – all being browsed (and presumably purchased) by ladies who only go out in public wearing head-to-toe black chadors. There’s a lot going on behind closed doors (and under those robes and scarves) that doesn’t meet the outsider’s eye.

 

A stylish young woman in Shiraz, showing off an unusual Iranian status symbol: the nose-job bandage.

It’s the law in Iran that when women go out in public, they have to wear at least a headscarf and something that’s not form-fitting that covers them down to the thighs or so.   Since women can only show their faces and bangs, they sometimes go to way too much trouble to optimize the parts that show. Nose-jobs are very common, and women with fresh ones wear the bandages in public as a status symbol.   Many women wear LOTS of makeup, too, or coif their exposed bangs to the point of absurdity.   And those black chadors may look generic, but stroll through the bazaar and you’ll see hundreds of different styles and types of black fabrics on display with patterns and sequins.

I asked several people: If they put the head-scarf law up to a public vote, how would it come out?   Most guessed that it’d be close to 50/50 or 60/40 overall, with women somewhat more likely to vote anti-scarf than men. It was interesting that they thought it was this close. And the reality was that in most areas, the women were going well beyond what any law actually required – wearing the full head-to-toe, mostly-black chadors rather than simple scarves and thigh-length coverups. Whether that’s their real preference or the product of family or cultural pressure is hard to know.

I also asked: What happens if you violate the rule? Apparently the police take you in and give you a ticket, and require you to sign something pledging not to do it again. So I asked: What happens if you do it again? Nobody seemed to know.

If it makes you ladies feel any better, there are restrictions on men, too. We can’t wear shorts. With some exceptions for organized team sports, shorts in public are not an option for men or women, even if you’re going for a jog (which hardly anyone seemed to do, maybe for this reason). Remember, Iran is mostly a desert and summer temperatures reach well over 100 every day, so a no-shorts rule is a pretty big deal.  Whatever you think of Iran’s clothing rules, it would not be accurate to presume they’re all about oppressing women.

Decades ago, before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Shah (king) wanted Iran to be (or seem) more mainstream and Western. He actually prohibited the chador head covering. That prohibition was even more unpopular than the current chador mandate.  People wanted the scarves, and the Shah’s efforts to “modernize” are said to be some part of what fueled support for the Islamic Revolution – which ousted him and put a Muslim Ayatollah in charge of the country’s dress codes. It’s too bad nobody thought to choose a middle path where everyone could do whatever they want with their headgear!   (Admittedly, though, our own country has a tough time choosing libertarian middle paths these days, too.)

One last, goofy thought: In America, we also have rules about which body parts must remain covered and which are okay to reveal in public. There are cultures elsewhere on earth that have different and more-revealing rules (exposing women’s breasts, for example). Those people probably think our rules are horribly restrictive, oppressive and silly – just what we tend to think about Iran’s. Our defense of our own dress-code choices would probably sound a little like Iran’s defense of theirs.

 

This guy’s very typical bazaar store is about 8 feet wide.

 

 

 

Iran: Persepolis and the Persian Empire

November 13, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off
Fereydoon is a Sufi "mystic," which seems to entail a lot of public philosophizing.

This guy identified himself as Fereydoon.  He’s a Sufi “mystic.”  We found him  philosophizing in front of the tombs of the ancient Persian Kings at Naqsh-e Rustam.

 

When Alexander the Great conquered Persia and ransacked the palaces of Persepolis in 330BC, it took 20,000 camels and mules to haul off all the looted treasure. His armies then set fires that left the place in ruins – ruins you can still see today just outside the city of Shiraz, Iran.

Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire.   In the 4th to 6th centuries B.C., the empire spanned territory from modern-day Turkey and Iraq in the west to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the east, with ancient Iran right in the middle. If the historians are right, Persepolis was the richest and most luxurious palace complex in the world. One of its palaces was the size of nearly three football fields, with soaring ceilings held up by 65-foot columns, topped with gilded statues.

 

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A school group from Shiraz visits the 2300-year-old ruins at Persepolis.

 

Naqsh-e Rustam

The most pervasive and iconic image at Persepolis:  A lion attacking a bull.  Supposedly it symbolizes day (lion) attacking and defeating night (bull).  The big ceremonies at Persepolis were on the first day of spring — the time of year when “day” first becomes longer than “night.”

 

Cyrus the Great founded and expanded the Achaemenid Empire in about 550BC. Notwithstanding his aggressive imperial conquests, he’s mentioned several times in the Old Testament as the heroic, benevolent king who freed the ancient Jews from their enslavement in Babylon. Cyrus’ successors included Xerxes I and II, and Darius I, II, and III, the last of which was in power when Alexander pushed his way eastward from Macedonia.

Cyrus’s 2500-year-old tomb is still standing in Pasagarde, about 25 miles (as crows fly) away from Persepolis. Xerxes I and Darius I & II are buried in hillside tombs at nearby Naqsh-e Rustam.

The Naqsh-e Rustam necropolis, with tombs of ancient Persian kings Darius & Xerxes.

The Naqsh-e Rustam necropolis, with tombs of ancient Persian kings Darius & Xerxes.

The beige of the hillside sculptures at Naqsh-e Rustam made for relatively bland photography — until a Sufi “mystic” named Fereydoon walked up. Fereydoon was impeccably dressed with a perfect beard, lots of jewelry, and a black and green hat. He apparently travels around the country just sharing his philosophy and wisdom. So he was eager to talk (except that he was also eager to take a minute for another cigarette). A lot was surely lost in translation. Other than a general endorsement of peace and unity and the like, about all I could really understand (I think) was his point that we spend too much of our energy defending and fighting about identities that we did not even choose. That is, groups of people fight because they are of differing religions, nationalities, races, or tribes, but we are all just randomly born into one group or the other. We fight for our team, even though we didn’t even get to choose which team we were on.   Or something like that.

In any event, he was a colorful character and he didn’t mind having his picture taken. At one point he stepped back and paused the conversation, lifted his head, let out a whoop-like shout and then stood motionless for a few seconds. I was sufficiently startled that I failed to get a picture of this happening. He later explained that sometimes he’s just “moved” to do that. I wasn’t sure what it was that moved him. I’m assuming that’s just how you roll when you’re a roving Sufi mystic.

Iran: Kashan

November 12, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off

My trip through Iran included a little bit of everything: from ancient ruins and nomadic shepherds to a ride on the Tehran subway and a weird visit to the former U.S. Embassy.  Lots of blue tiled buildings, lots of desert, and lots of eggplant and chicken kebabs with rice. Some fun and lovely sites and stories; some wacky experiences. I even came home with a couple of real Persian rugs. The small city of Kashan was actually the last stop of my trip around Iran, but the pictures are handiest so I’ll start at the end.

Agha Bozorgh Mosque and school. From the back (near the volleyball court!).

Agha Bozorgh Mosque and school. From the back (near the volleyball court!).

People have lived in what’s now the Iranian city of Kashan for 8,000 years, making it one of the oldest known human settlements. It’s been a hub for royals and merchants for at least 2,000. By some accounts, it’s where one or more of the biblical “three wise men” of the nativity came from. Kashan’s location on the historical Silk Road network allowed the merging of Asian silk with Persian wool rug-making skill.  Lots of VIPs have come through Kashan.  Now I have, too.

Unfortunately, a 1778 earthquake mostly leveled the place, so most of the structures you see around town are “only” a couple of hundred years old.  That photogenic two-level mosque is Agha Bozorg, built shortly after the earthquake.During the 1800s, the local mega-merchants built some sprawling, luxurious private homes so they could host their travelling merchant business associates in grand style. One of those old houses had been remade into my very snazzy hotel, which was a welcome respite after a couple of weeks that had included multiple nights on a mat on the floor — or in an open-sided tent in the desert.  More on that later.

Like most Iranian men, this guy's name was Ali. He's wearing black to commemorate the two-month mourning period for Imam Hussain, a descendant of Muhammed who died a hero 1300 years ago. Ali spoke perfect English and was eager to give this American a quick tour of the shrine of Sultan Amir Ahmad, another descendant of Muhammed.

Like most Iranian men (half-kidding), this guy’s name was Ali. He’s wearing black to commemorate the two-month mourning period for Imam Hussain, a descendant of Muhammed who died a hero 1300 years ago. Ali spoke perfect English and was eager to give this American a quick tour of the shrine of Sultan Amir Ahmad, another descendant of Muhammed.  He also asked if I’d pose with him for a selfy (so I got one, too).

 

Agha Bozorg at night

Agha Bozorgh, just after dark

 

Abbas told me about his family in the U.S. and said his neighbor in Kashan was somehow related to the Sultan Amir Amad (whose neon-lit shrine is in the background). Abbas insisted that I join him for hot tea. That led to meeting the other elderly gentlemen shown in some of the pictures below.

Abbas told me about his family in the U.S. and said his neighbor in Kashan was somehow related to the Sultan Amir Amad (whose neon-lit shrine is in the background). Abbas insisted that I join him for hot tea. That led to meeting the other elderly gentlemen shown in some of the pictures below.

 

The old Hamam (bathhouse).

Inside the Amir Ahmad  Hamam (bathhouse).

 

Artsy, huh? This is the pond atop a natural spring well at Fin Garden in Kashan.

Artsy, huh? This is the pond atop a natural spring well at Fin Garden in Kashan.

 

Seriously, this is the courtyard of my hotel.

This is the courtyard of my hotel.  I’ll bet you weren’t expecting something this nice in a small Iranian town.

 

 

 

Tsomoriri, Ladakh: Nomads, Altitude and Yaks

July 1, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off

I’ve been terribly delinquent at organizing my pictures from last fall’s trip to the Ladakh region of India. The trip was originally intended to include Kashmir, but last summer’s rioting and stonings convinced my group to stay east of there in Ladakh. The upside was a more in-depth tour of Ladakh.

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Our local driver convinced this nomad lady to put on her ceremonial formalwear for us to see. She wasn’t eager to have her picture taken, so she wouldn’t come fully out of her tent, and I only had a minute.

 

Compared with the U.S., India has 4 times as many people on 1/3 as many square miles.  But Ladakh — the very mountainous far-north region near the Pakistan border — is mostly isolated small towns and villages.  The mountains were bare and stark — not simply like mountains above a tree line, but like a mostly barren desert that happened to have 23,000 foot peaks.  I spent a few nights in tent camps at 13,000 to 15,000 feet.

The sparse villages of the various areas within Ladakh have very distinctive and varied tribal cultures and ethnicities.  One of the more interesting stops visited a nomad camp near the remote village of Korzok on Lake Tsomoriri, a long day’s drive southeast of Leh. These nomadic people move a couple of times a year – taking their herds of sheep, goats, and yaks to better grazing   Their tent homes are made of yak-wool, and when it’s time to move, the yaks themselves carry the tents (and everything else).

We camped just one night at the lake; it’s at 15,000 feet elevation and chilly even in the fancy tents they had set up for us. One of our drivers was from the area, so he knew their dialect and convinced them to let us into their tents to really see how they lived. They were surprisingly roomy and full of rugs. My brief curiosity about where the rugs came from was immediately satisfied when I saw one of the women patiently weaving a yak wool rug.

 

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Those pictures of the young mother and her kids around their tent make me think of the Dorothea Lange iconic depression-era photograph of the “Migrant Mother,” Florence Thompson. Lange’s work was famous for showing the world the startling struggles of 1930s American nomads. The living conditions of these Ladakhis may appear to be surprisingly similar, but that’s probably deceptive. Lange photographed people in a crisis, but this is a way of life for the Ladakhi nomads, and they seem very capable of providing food and shelter much as their ancestors have for centuries.

 

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