Where else in the United States would nearly one thousand people attend a Tuesday night slideshow presentation about travelling in Iran, and give a standing ovation at the end? Just another reason why I love living in the Seattle area.

Kristin and I attended Rick Steves’ presentation about Iran last night. The idea behind his trip to Iran came from the members of the United Nations Association, Seattle Chapter who wanted to try and do something that would stick out amongst all the saber rattling that was going on this past spring. So Steves set about getting his film crew together to head to Iran for a 12-day trip with the goal being to peel back the layers of politics and stereotypes and reveal the human side of the Iranians. Or as he put it, “to at least try to get to know the people we might end up bombing.”

Those who think Ahmadinejad’s words and feelings about the US are echoed by the minds of the 70 million Iranians would be surprised to hear that Rick was received warmly by Iranians of all ages, and that the citizens of Iran don’t spend their time hating the US and Israel; they spend their time worrying about work, going to school, buying groceries, paying the rent, and everything else we all consume our days with. Yes, the theocratic government of Iran does have numerous anti-American/Israel murals on the sides of the buildings and does pay for much anti-western signage throughout the city of Tehran (home to 14 million). But the people of the country were not so different than you and I. They just want to fall in love, raise a family, and get a good job just like us. It would be impossible to talk about Iran without talking a bit of politics, but not to condemn or agree with opinions held by our leaders in Washington (certainly not to agree), but to offer what may be an explanation for some of the beliefs.

The crew didn’t spend the entire trip in Tehran (oddly enough, a city that Rick compared to Vancouver, BC in appearance and cosmopolitan traits). They traveled south to Esfahan, to Shiraz, and Persepolis as well. The photos were very impressive. The architecture, the mosques, and especially the faces in the crowd were all very beautiful. Persepolis was one of the main sites during the Persian Empire and was on the level of Athens, Cairo, or Rome in terms of ancient sites.

The presentation ended with a rousing standing ovation not only for the slideshow, but to also commend Rick Steves for the hour-long PBS special that will be aired in January in over 100 cities around the country. Activism through eductation. I had the fortune of sitting next to an Iranian-American couple who were overjoyed at seeing someone from this country finally set out to humanize the Iranian people and make an effort to show the people of the USA, basically, that there is no reason for these citizens to die. That bomb-bomb-bombing Iran does have consequences. Some of the Iranian-American couples stood up to comment on several things that Rick didn’t get to see, such as the people of Iran gathering to light candles and say prayers for the victims of 9/11. That he didn’t get to truly feel the hospitality and cooking skills of the people because of his whirlwind tour. And one also expanded on some of Rick’s comments about Iranian-American relations with regard to the Shaw and Khomeini.

Rick put together a 45-page journal designed to be a companion to his upcoming show on PBS. I’ll post a reminder about the show in January, when it’s set to air. In the meantime, Rick will be giving another presentation near Everett, Washington on November 8th.

You can watch a preview for the PBS show on Iran right here. There is also a lot of F.A.Q. style blurbs at that link that can offer up some answers to your Iranian curiosity.

By Doug Walsh

A lot of people laugh when I suggest they consider Iran as the destination for their next holiday. Many think I’m joking, or just plain crazy, but I tell them that I’m totally serious.The few people who have made the journey to Iran don’t laugh - they rank it among their favorite countries in the world to visit.After 10 trips to Iran during the past few years, there are clearly many things about this most misunderstood of countries that keep calling me back. If you are looking to get off the well-trodden trail, I say head for Iran.

Here’s why:

1. Iranian Hospitality

Iranians have a centuries old reputation for being a very hospitable people, especially when it comes to foreign guests. This dates back to a time when nomadic people roamed the Middle East and Central Asia.The hospitality tradition has only intensified in recent years, and with so few Western travelers coming to Iran these days, many who do go are overwhelmed by the warm welcome.For citizens of the United States who are wary of our government’s relationship with Iran, I can say that Iranians have a more favorable view of Americans than ANY of the other twenty nations I’ve visited since 9/11.

2. Amazing History
The Persian civilization is one of the oldest civilizations on earth and there are reminders of that great history scattered all over the country.Whether it’s archaic and abandoned ruins dotting the sides of highways, or the ubiquitous call to prayer, visitors will experience a very ancient land with a vibrant and vital society.UNESCO has granted World Heritage status to several locales in Iran, including the city of Esfhan, which many refer to as a “Middle Eastern Florence,” and the ruins of Persepolis, where Alexander the Great defeated the Persians in 334 BC.Iran is a very large country and is home to some of the most varied landscapes in the world. For adventure travelers, all that separates you from skiing and scuba diving on the same weekend is an hour-long flight.Iran boasts vast desert and forest areas. Several endangered animals roam Iran, including the Asiatic cheetah, and the country is one of the biggest fruit growers in the region.

4. Getting Around is Easy

With an airport in every decent sized city in Iran, and government subsidized airfare, getting around Iran is easy. Extensive railroad and bus routes are also available, making all parts of Iran truly accessible to travelers.

5. Iran is affordable

Inflation in Iran is soaring, but your dollar will still get you much further there than in most other top destinations. For the trip of a lifetime, it’s a bargain.There are so few tourists traveling to Iran that it could feel like a lonely place if not for the Iranians’ warmth and their inviting nature. This characteristic makes it possible to truly connect with the people of Iran and their history.

7. Breaking Stereotypes

By visiting Iran, you are making two statements: “I am my own person,” and “I will inform myself about the world.”Iran has been demonized for decades, but nearly all people who travel there come home with their stereotypes shattered, replaced by fond memories of gracious hosts and unforgettable landscapes.

Yes, I’m still over here in Iran.

After leaving Shiraz, I then wandered off to Pasargad, which used to be Cyrus the Great’s ceremonial home. At one time this place was truly impressive but there’s not much left at Pasargad now. It looked like it had gotten foreclosed upon too.

From there I went on to Esfahan, famous for its awe-inspiring and spiritually overwhelming architecture. Esfahan boasts churches, mosques and synagogues that are so awe-inspiring they would move even a rock to tears. I cried a lot in Esfahan.

When the Armenians were persecuted in Turkey during the 17th century, the Shah of Iran at that time invited them to settle in Esfahan and they did. And then the new immigrants built a magnificent church — which I just visited. OMG, it was breathtaking. Marble floors, paintings, murals, chandeliers, domed ceilings, sacred music, incense, vaulted alcoves, the whole nine yards. I would have been brought to my knees by the overwhelming majesty of it all — except of course that I gots bad knees.

I could have stayed in that church for hours — like I did at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. It was both spiritually and architecturally magnificent. I wish that the inside of my brain looked like this.

But then I looked closer at some of the paintings nearest to eye-level — and they were all paintings of tortured martyrs! Yuck. They depicted scenes of lead being poured on saints’ heads, saints being boiled in oil, hung outside down from trees, having their eyes gouged out, intestines ripped out, heads squished in stocks, heads covered in sacks containing something obviously horrible (Snakes? Deadly insects? Wasps?), having boiling water poured on their genitals, saints’ chests being cut with scythes — and then of course there were the ten stations of the cross.

These Armenians must have led really hard lives.

Then I went off to the Armenian museum where I learned that on April 24, 1915, one-and-a-half million Armenians were systematically massacred by the Turkish military in a troop exercise as precisely planned and executed as a slaughterhouse producing beef.

Some of the remaining Armenians escaped to America but most of the survivors fled to Iran.

After visiting the Armenian church (and eating pomegranate and walnut stew, chicken kabobs and saffron ice cream for lunch), I then went off to visit a Jewish synagogue.

“In biblical times when the Jews were dragged off to Babylon,” I was told, “they were freed by Cyrus the Great, King of Persia — and many of the unshackled Jews then followed him back to Iran, where there is still a large Jewish community in Esfahan even today,” umpteen centuries later.

At the synagogue, the rabbi and his wife and daughter gave me a tour of the temple and a soccot tent out in its garden. That part was nice, sure, but the most moving moment was when the rabbi’s daughter held up both of her hands, palms outward, and blessed me. The traditional symbology of the Jewish Hamsa Hand came to life in the rabbi’s daughter’s palm. The gesture was so powerful and moving that I don’t even wanna talk about it.

After that, I went off to tour the mosques of Esfahan. Stunning. Before you die, you really should try to go there — or at least let me send you a post card of any one of those mosques. They are as humbling and inspiring as any cathedral in France.

So. While I’m on the subject of churches, mosques and synagogues, now might be a good time to talk about religion. “When religion turns into politics, something vital is lost,” someone once told me — I forget who.

When the so-called leaders of our countries prey upon all our human yearning for spirituality and convert it into hatred and anger, something terribly precious is lost — it is as if all the glory and honor and awe of the churches, mosques and synagogues of Esfahan (and the world) have been burned to the ground.

The greatest triumph of the world’s religions has been their ability to help mankind become better, to rise above itself, to become more evolved. And here in Iran, I’ve seen both sides of the religious coin — from the humility and piety of the true Christian, Muslim and Jew to the obsessive control freaks who have nothing better to do than to give ME grief about whether or not I’m wearing a headscarf. (The good news is that the headscarf is on its way out here in Iran. And also I hear that Iranians are rather pissed off that their oil money is being spent to fix the streets of Lebanon instead of to fix the streets of Iran. Sound familiar?)

And in America, our current so-called leaders — who always go about bragging that they are all so religious and spend all their time getting instructions from God — are too busy making war on foreigners to fix bridges in Minneapolis or levees in New Orleans or Iowa.

And in Israel, the so-called religious leaders there are too busy spending American taxpayers’ money on bombing Palestine, Lebanon and Syria to spend any more than the bare minimum on building schools in Tel Aviv and are currently spending no money at all on building schools in Gaza.

It’s time for our religious leaders to get out of politics, get their game on and start raising the spiritual bar — by example — instead. And it’s time for our political leaders to stop playing God.

Anyway, I’m currently writing this diatribe from an internet cafe in Esfahan — and have been here for HOURS. “I love the internet world,” I told the clerk there, “and hate the real world.” He just smiled — because he knew exactly what I was talking about. He was an Iranian nerd and an Iranian nerd is just like an American nerd And then it hit me. I’m a nerd too!

It took me all of 66 years and roaming all over the world for a decade to finally discover my true self-identity here In Iran!

I want to try to give you readers back home a sense of what it’s like here in Iran. Strangers come up to you on the street all the time, give you a big hug and say, “We love Americans.” People in Iran consider driving to be a sport — the Iranian version of bullfighting. 70% of the population is under 30. More people than you would expect speak English. And everywhere you look, there is something scenic going on.

There is so much to see and do in Iran. This place is a tourist paradise. “Iran never disappoints”.

After spending two weeks in the desert oasises of southern Iran, traveling up to the northern part of the country was like going from Arizona to San Francisco. Tabriz was so foggy and temperate that I kept looking around for cable cars, French bread and a big orange bridge. Having lived in Berkeley for most of my life, I felt right at home in Tabriz. You would too.

The one big difference between the Bay Area and northern Iran — aside from the fact that everyone here speaks Farsi — is that I couldn’t find any reliable internet connections in the north. Everywhere I went in Shiraz, Tehran and Esfahan, there were “Coffee Nets” — but not here. My kids must all think that I’m dead.

After I left San Francisco, er, Tabriz, everything changed once again and the landscape we drove through suddenly became like a clone of the English countryside — thatched-roof cottages and all. All those years of British occupation has still left its stamp on Iran.

And the Mongols have left their stamp too.

One place I went to was a troglodyte village up in the mountains that featured a four-star hotel dug into a cave. The village — not the four-star hotel — was built into the sides of a mountain as a hideout from the Mongols way back in the day. It was really funny to look up on the rocky cliff walls and see windows.

Next, came Iran’s version of the Swiss Alps and a border-crossing into Azerbaijan. At one point I actually found myself in the pine forests of the former USSR.

“Iran never disappoints.”

During all of my travels throughout Iran, every restaurant I stopped at had chicken kabobs on the menu but after the first couple of times, I wised up. While the pilaffs, stews, eggplant dishes, anti-pasta and soups in Iran are positively wonderful, every single chicken kabob that I’ve tasted here has been stringy, tough and DRY. “Chicken on the menu tonight AGAIN?” I’d complain — and then order the lamb-pomegranate-walnut stew instead.

But on the main street of the small northern country town of Fuman, I found a tiny family-owned restaurant that finally knew how to Do Chicken Right and I got so excited that I rushed off to the kitchen to demand to meet the chef! Boy was he surprised. But I got to see what his kitchen looked like and it was small. This was no Chez Pannise we’re talking about here but who cares. That chicken was good! So. The next time that you are in Fuman, be sure to eat at the Restaurant Pars on the main street, four blocks down from a plaster statue of some mythic queen driving a chariot. And tell them that Jane sent you.

But the highlight of my entire trip — aside from the food, the ancient mosques and all that Ozymandias stuff — was the Caspian Sea. Before coming to Iran, the only thing I knew about the Caspian Sea was its proximity to some infamous pipeline and its murky connections with Bush’s attacks on Afghanistan.

Sorry, guys, but I didn’t see no pipeline.

“The Caspian is 75 feet below sea level and has no outlet,” said the clerk at my hotel, “but the water from the Volga keeps pouring into it nonetheless.” Imagine a bathtub with a stopper covering its drain and its water tap turned on full-blast. That’s pretty much what the Caspian Sea is like. And there’s only a ten-foot high breakwater standing between the full force of the Caspian and my hotel room. And it’s raining. And the wind is raging off of roiling sea at approximately 60 miles an hour. Awesome!

I walked out onto the breakwater at dusk and it was almost like being on a levee in NOLA during a hurricane. I got that Katrina feeling right away. It was one of the most powerful and surreal moments of my life. Me against the elements!

Iran never disappoints.

But then reality set in and I realized that if I were to get swept away into the pounding surf of the Caspian, no one would ever know what happened to me — let alone be able to e-mail my family — and so I went back into the hotel.

Forget about the politics of Bush and Ahmadinejad and everything you’ve ever heard about Iran on Fox News. This country is amazing. You just GOTTA come here. I gotta join the Iran Chamber of Commerce! I gotta write a book about this place.

PS: The night manager of the Laleh Sar-ein Hotel in Sarein asked me to give his establishment a plug — so here it is. It really is a nice hotel. Plus it’s got internet. “Sarein is famous for its curative hot springs,” said the night manager, “plus it is right down the road from Iran’s most popular ski resort.” Then he gave me a DVD but I couldn’t get it to play.

By Jane Stillwater

Travel by Germans to the Islamic Republic of Iran is soaring.
Travel agencies, tour operators, and travel wholesalers are booking Iran for droves of tourists in Germany.
‘There has been an enormous increase in the number of German tourists travelling to Iran in 2008, the Managing Director of Dr. Tigges/Gebeco travel agency, Ury Steinway has told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. The stand-off with Iran by Germany and other European nations, together with the U.S. and Britain, has failed to dent tourist growth to the country he said.
Steinway explained German tourists want to see Iran for themselves and are not swayed by media reports.
The Munich-based Studiosus Reisen Travel Agency which is the largest tour operator of culture and nature special interest group tours in Germany, said Iran has become the top destination for German tourists in the Middle East.
Studiosus is in charge of the travel arrangements of over 100,000 tourists every year.
Germans are expected to remain world travel champions in 2008, according to various press reports.
The number of package holiday tours rose 3.5 percent to reach a record level of more than 83 million.
The German Travel Association (DRV) reported earlier that 72 percent of Germans plan to take a trip for at least five days.
German tourism turnover revenues are expected to surpass the 30-billion-euro mark in 2008.

“Beyond our ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”— Rumi, 13th-century Persian poet

Bob Augustine’s last encounter with Iran was on a Pan Am plane, a few days before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took control as architect of the country’s fundamentalist Islamic revolution. He remembers the panicked faces as plainclothes security men yanked passengers off the jet just before takeoff, and the sobs of relief when their pilot announced they had cleared Iranian airspace.

Thirty years later, the retired telecommunications executive from Bonita Springs, Fla., is back in the Axis of Evil — as a tourist.

An old map in hand and wife Jill by his side, Augustine is launching his eight-city Iranian odyssey with a mission to reconnect with the couple’s former Tehran neighbors. Also reaching out: hardliner president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is promoting foreign tourism as a “strategic bridge” at a time of escalating tensions between Iran and the West. And despite a State Department travel warning that U.S. citizens may be subject to harassment or arrest, a trickle of plucky Yankee tourists — about 1,600 so far this year — have been answering the call.

“There are many things that Americans justifiably find outrageous about the Iranian government,” acknowledges guidebook guru Rick Steves, whose one-hour travel special about his own May trip airs on PBS stations in January.

But the peripatetic author says he’s “never had so many preconceived notions torn apart,” and proclaims the Middle Eastern powerhouse and political lightning rod the most “surprising and fascinating” land he’s ever visited.

Their two-week swing by plane and bus through a country twice the size of Texas will take them from chaotic, lung-searing traffic in the capital, Tehran (population 12 million), to a one-room school in the mountain hamlet of Abyaneh (Lonely Planet’s population estimate: “a few old women, most of the time.”)

They’ll wander the 2,500-year-old ruins of Persepolis, cradle of the Persian Empire until it was sacked and burned by Alexander the Great, and watch men gather for prayers beneath arches of staggeringly intricate tiles in Isfahan, a UNESCO Heritage city that ancient Persians proudly dubbed “half the world.” They’ll savor pistachio ice cream in the convoluted alleys of Yazd, a Silk Road outpost that 13th-century visitor Marco Polo declared “good and noble,” and listen to the eerie strains of the ney, a wooden flute, at the shrine of a Sufi mystic in Mahan.

And amid one of the world’s most demonized regimes and bewildering societies, they will be greeted with two constants: “Welcome to Iran!” and smiles as wide as a cloudless desert sky.

‘Two very different worlds’

Now working in France, the young Iranian on the KLM flight from Amsterdam is returning home to Tehran for a family visit. She drains her glass of Chardonnay, waiting to tie a bright scarf on her head until she leaves the cabin. (Iran bans public alcohol consumption, and all women, including foreigners, are required to wear hijab, or head covering, and modest dress in public.) When an American tourist asks whether she’s worried airport inspectors will confiscate the Sex and the City DVDs stuffed into her carry-on, she shrugs.

“Iranians are like sugar in water. We can blend in to survive,” says Golsa Fouladinejad. “In Iran, we live in two very different worlds: public, and behind closed doors.”

Those public and private worlds collide constantly, and foreign visitors are often on the fault lines. In Isfahan, a shopkeeper’s dinner invitation includes a session in front of the family’s illegal satellite TV, beaming the latest Hollywood soaps and news from CNN. On one of Tehran’s pristine subway cars, a teenager sports a sweatshirt emblazoned with “United States of America, Washington, D.C.” It’s not far from the former U.S. Embassy, where a wall mural still shows a skull-faced Statue of Liberty and this week’s anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the compound by militant Iranian students was marked by the burning of U.S. and Israeli flags.

London artist Lorna Tresidder, like several others came to Iran expecting a Third World country. She says she has been “gobsmacked” by the modern highways, litter-free streets and engaging, well-informed people.

But while it’s tough to find an Iranian who supports the U.S. government, many are highly critical of their own.

At the Shiraz tomb of Hafez, a 14th-century poet whom most Iranians can quote by heart, a pilgrim with a spiky haircut straight out of There’s Something About Mary shows off his cellphone with a popular rap video. The stars: a jiving Ahmadinejad and Khomeini. In Isfahan, a carpet shop salesman steers a tourist off the street and into his shop — not to extol the virtues of hand-woven tribal designs, but to whisper his anger at Iran’s skyrocketing inflation rate (nearing an estimated 30% a year) and what he complains is a growing disconnect between oil revenues and average workers. And in Yazd, a stronghold of the country’s pre-Islamic faith, Zoroastrianism, a popular souvenir is a pendant depicting the ancient Zoroastrian symbol of a winged man — a symbol that some young Iranians wear as a silent protest against the country’s fundamentalist regime.

Mood swings at a sports event

It was billed as a brief stop at a crumbling ghost town between Isfahan and Shiraz, the garden-filled city that has been the heart of Persian culture for more than two millennia. But within minutes of the tour bus’s arrival at the hilltop redoubt of Izadkhast, it’s clear that the morning agenda will be tossed to the winds.

Nearby residents have gathered for a yearly sports award ceremony, men and boys on one side and a sea of women in head-to-toe black chadors on the other. Then, as the entranced tourists raise their cameras and angle for a better view, the tenor changes.

New York investment banker Rex Visher, 26, recounts the scene: “Please respect our culture and our privacy. No photos,” a stony-faced local tells him. A police car suddenly materializes, lights flashing.

And when the man learns Visher is from America, the mood shifts yet again. Visher exchanges e-mail addresses and poses for the villager’s own photo as Visher’s fellow travelers are besieged with autograph requests.

“Tell us,” the now-genial man asks Visher. “What is one piece of advice you would give the Iranian people?”

The chattering crowd falls quiet and leans in for his answer: “Stay kind, and be positive.”

Camels and cab fare

On the tour’s last night in Iran, the group gathers for a farewell dinner in the chichi North Tehran neighborhood of Darband, snuggled against the steep slopes of the Elburz Mountains. Over platters of kebabs and rice (mainstays of practically every restaurant menu in the country), they recall the highlights from a trip of a lifetime that most of their friends thought they’d been crazy to attempt.

Dubliner John Feeney, whose own tin whistle had harmonized with traditional Iranian instruments in teahouses along the way, remembers the camels. Moseying home to a 400-year-old desert caravanserai, one of hundreds of inns that once sheltered Silk Road traders, they reminded the middle-aged banker of cows in the Irish Midlands — commonalities, he says, that can unite even disparate cultures.

Bart Van Gestel, a 24-year-old from Antwerp, Belgium, marvels at the Iranian who befriended him on his flight to Tehran. Arranging a taxi after their middle-of-the-night arrival, the man accompanied him to his hotel and insisted on paying the fare. The explanation was one the Belgian would hear repeated often: “You are a guest in our country.”

Forthe Augustines, the journey has brought them full circle.

Bob’s 30-year-old map had delivered them to the doorstep of their former apartment, where they’d lived while he worked on government projects for the country’s previous ruler, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Their old landlord answered the knock, and tears flowed as the onetime friends and neighbors made up for decades of lost time.

As Jill gossiped with the landlord’s grown daughters, they reminded her of long-ago picnics and swimming lessons. And they reminisced about something else: a sapling Jill had planted in the family’s front yard. Towering nearly three stories above them, the tree was a symbol, too.

“All of us have planted seeds on this trip,” says Jill. “Governments come, and governments go, but there is always room to talk.”

“In the name of God, the compassionate and the merciful, welcome to this Iran Air flight to Esfahan.” To say that I am a nervous flyer would be an understatement. So imagine my terror at being strapped inside a 30-year old Boeing 747 about to take off on a 40-minute flight from Tehran to Esfahan in central Iran. I knew it didn’t have any spare parts because it said so in the Iran Daily on my lap, in which the Iranian minister for roads and transport accused the American trade embargo of “endangering the lives of passengers”.

In front of me was a sea of Hermès scarves, on the heads of the Iranian women who had forked out the equivalent of £20 for the heavily subsidised return flight. The air stewardess, dressed in a stylish bottle-green scarf topped with a cap, soothed our nerves by switching on pleasant mood music, which thankfully continued until well after take-off. Less than an hour later we had been transported to one of the most magnificent Islamic cities in the world.

I was an accidental tourist in Esfahan. A small group of Western journalists had been invited by the government to tour Iran’s most sensitive nuclear sites. But when we arrived in Esfahan on the first leg of the tour these plans immediately began to unravel. We were informed that after an afternoon’s sightseeing, we would spend part of the next day visiting a steel plant instead of a scheduled visit to the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Needless to say we rebelled, and Jafaar, the government representative in Esfahan, became our unofficial tour guide to his home city.

I had long wanted to visit Esfahan, once the capital of Persia, but had not been prepared for such splendour. The Persians called it Nisf-e-Jahan, ” half the world”, meaning that to see it was to see 50 per cent of all the worthwhile sights on earth. The city, framed by spectacular jagged sandstone mountains, is an oasis in the desert, and is therefore surprisingly green, cut through with an elegant garden boulevard lined by plane trees.

Our first stop was the “40 pillars” palace of Chehel Sotun. The name arises because its 20 carved wooden pillars holding up an intricately inlaid ceiling are mirrored in a long reflecting pool, set in a park of cawing grey crows. Inside the palace is one of the surprises of the Islamic republic: among the frescoes is one of a topless maiden. The paintings survived the 1979 revolution thanks to the protection of the palace caretakers.

We had stumbled on one of the paradoxes of Iran, which seemed to me like a curious mix of America and the Soviet Union. Behind closed doors, middle-class Iranians are dressed in the latest Western fashions, enjoy a glass of black-market wine, and watch satellite television. Yet outside they are subjected to the watchful eyes of the state’s repressive security apparatus, while women can be threatened with jail for showing too much hair under their hijab.

Westerners are expected to observe the dress code in Iran. In addition to a headscarf or shawl, you need to wear a long-sleeved, shapeless, lightweight overcoat that comes to your knees – if you can find such a thing in summer. I was lucky because a friend brought me a cheap black manteau – a cotton overcoat – from the Tehran bazaar, which I wore over jeans or trousers. (The alternative would have been a borrowed rubbery black Dannimac, rather inappropriate in the heat.)

On the flight from London to Tehran, it had been quite a sight to see the plane transformed into a giant changing room when we touched down, as Iranian women in full make-up and skimpy clothes put on their scarves and overcoats, smiling at each other in silent complicity. The strict dress code, in force since the revolution, makes itself felt everywhere in a kind of sexual apartheid, from hotel swimming pools – where mixed bathing is strictly forbidden – to separate entrances for men and women in the airport departure area. This is where Western women are most likely to have their scarf yanked forward by a forbidding old crone in a full-length black chador, as happened to me.

And yet the Islamic Republic of Iran, where the population is mostly Shia Muslim, is unexpectedly discreet in its religious aspects. Although every office contains portraits of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the current supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, you don’t hear the call to prayer from countless minarets as you do in the great Arab cities. I heard more Islamic ring tones on mobile phones in predominantly Sunni Muslim Egypt than I did in Iran.

After a copious lunch of salad, including a plate piled high with fresh basil leaves and walnuts, and kebabs washed down with alcohol-free Bavaria beer, we piled into our air-conditioned coach. Jafaar took us to the heart of Esfahan, Imam square, dating from the golden age of Persian architecture under the ruthless and bloodthirsty Shah Abbas the Great.

The square – once used as a polo ground, as you can see from the marble goalposts – is stunning. Its uniform two-storey buildings embrace some of the most impressive Islamic monuments in the world, as well as the bustling bazaar. Sweating under our hot scarves and overcoats, we climbed up a spiral staircase to a pillared terrace in Shah Abbas’s Ali Qapu palace, from where he used to watch the polo matches, and we viewed the full majesty of the square. Opposite us was the miniature private mosque built by the Shah between 1602 and 1619, which you enter through a twisting corridor. But the square is dominated by the blue-tiled dome of the Imam mosque, which the Shah managed to see completed just before his death.

Jafaar was pressing on. We followed him higher up the spiral staircase until, red-faced and puffing in the oppressive heat, we arrived in the music room on the palace’s seventh floor, where the musicians would entertain royal guests from behind an intricately carved wall.

“Why did the Shah build a spiral staircase?” asked Jafaar. We were still gasping for breath. “For security reasons. A single swordsman could protect his master by swinging his weapon in his right hand from the top of the stairs, but those coming up would have to fight with their left.”

But Jafaar kept his best party trick for the Imam mosque. After entering through the portal, past its swirling calligraphy, you have to turn a corner into the mosque, which was built to face Mecca. “Listen to this,” he said, and stamped on a central paving stone under the great dome. The echo went on and on – up to 17 times, he said. We all joined in the fun. Jafar invited a little girl to do the same, and her shy whisper reverberated again and again. “They built it with the echo because if you do a good thing it reflects on you, or if you do a bad thing it will too,” Jafaar said. “So it means – think about what you’re doing.”

It was time for a break. We joined the sweet-toothed Iranians queuing up for ice cream, and drank pomegranate juice on the grass. As the tourists returned to their hotels, Iranian families began to gather at the end of the day to picnic; some assembled rudimentary gas stoves. A girl in a headscarf skated in circles on yellow roller-blades to the amusement of her friends. Small groups, including some women dressed in the chador, hired a horse and carriage and recorded their ride through the square on video.

By 8pm it was getting dark, but Jafaar hadn’t finished with us yet. We were driven to the Khaju bridge, which stands over the gushing turquoise waters of the Zaindeh River, along roads jammed with traffic as the locals headed for the riverside. Despite the gridlock, we were told that the number of motorists on the road had decreased since the government brought in petrol rationing at the end of June. According to Jafaar, the bridge is the best place for summer picnics, as a cool breeze runs through its arches, built on two levels by Shah Abbas II on the spot of a former caravanserai.

While most people were content to sit on the steps of the illuminated bridge, we saw some Iranians stroking one of the two lion statues on each side. “Look, the lion’s eyes glow in the dark,” said Jafaar. It was the eerie reflection from a yellow street lamp. Further along the river’s curve, where a fountain plays, Iranians hired little boats with swan necks in a scene straight out of Wagner’s Lohengrin, minus the music.

It was time to head back to our hotel, the luxurious Abbasi, where dinner – delicious barley soup, more salad, kebabs and a bright pink mayonnaise mysteriously called French dressing – was served in a garden courtyard. Only then could we return to our rooms to rip off our hot shawls and overcoats.

The next day, our tourist treat continued. First up was a visit to the city’s Armenian quarter and Vank cathedral, whose sober exterior contrasts with astonishingly gruesome frescoes inside depicting the martyrdom of saints. Shah Abbas I, who unified the country, deported hundreds of thousands of Armenians to Esfahan during a scorched-earth campaign, and several thousand still remain in the city, although many families have left for the United States.

Inside the cathedral complex stands the Armenian museum. In addition to a drawing of a bearded man, attributed to Rembrandt, the museum contains two unique exhibits. An Armenian had managed the extraordinary feat of writing on a woman’s hair. You can view it through a microscope. The other curiosity in the museum is the world’s smallest book, an object the size of a microchip that weighs 0.7g and contains, we were told, the Lord’s Prayer in seven languages.

Next on our tour was the Friday Mosque, a sprawling complex rebuilt after a fire in the 12th century, which has been described as a museum of Islamic architecture through the ages. Esfahan, invaded by the Arabs, the Afghans and Tamerlane in its long history, has luckily escaped a major earthquake. But the city lives in fear of a tremor such as the one that flattened the ancient town of Bam on the old Silk Road. When we visited Shah Abbas’s private Sheikh Lotfollah mosque, Jafaar pointed out a row of wooden bricks just above our heads, laid in hopes of protecting the building from an underground jolt.

As we entered the Friday Mosque, people were beginning to gather for prayers, the women separated from the men by thick cotton sheeting. The Shia pray three times a day, with the last prayers taking place half an hour after sunset. In winter, prayers are held at the Friday Mosque in an underground chamber lit by alabaster skylights.

A woman followed us out of the mosque. As she adjusted her chador, I caught a glimpse of her smart black trousers and beige and red jacket underneath. She snapped open a red mobile phone as she headed into the bazaar. It was another image of Iran today.

On our last evening in Esfahan, we shook off our minders. It was time to hit the bazaar. No sooner had Jafaar disappeared into the darkness than a tall young man with typically Iranian grey eyes sauntered over and struck up a conversation. “Welcome to Iran,” he said to me and my two female companions. “Are you German?”

You might expect Iranians to be wary of the British, as we seem to be blamed for many of their woes (although it was Saddam Hussein who most recently attacked Esfahan, when a rocket slammed into a mosque during the Iran-Iraq war). The UK did, of course, plot to overthrow the first democratically elected Iranian leader, Mohammad Mossadegh, in the 1950s, after he nationalised the Anglo-Iranian oil company. But the average Iranian reaches out to foreigners across the language barrier, including the British.

Hamid, who worked for one of the carpet-sellers in the bazaar, guided us to the “best” pistachio store, where sacks full of nuts, dried figs and sultanas were piled high. There were beautifully decorated tins containing a kind of cashew-nut brittle in a delicious caramelised sugar.

Hamid asked whether we had been to a teahouse. Esfahan is renowned for its ancient teahouses, where Iranians sit for hours contemplating life in front of their hookahs.

We followed him down alleyways behind the bazaar and finally through a tunnel emerging into a courtyard. Suddenly, I heard a loud whooshing noise and saw a burst of flames. I began to wonder whether we would need to call the tourist police, whose white-and-green cars are parked at the main tourist sites, but it was only a metalworker plying his trade in the courtyard. We descended a few more stairs and found ourselves in the oldest teahouse in Esfahan, where we could see lines of men drawing on their hookahs on the other side of a curtain.

Mixed hookah sharing was banned a few months ago, when the mullahs realised that young Iranians were seizing the opportunity for physical closeness with the opposite sex. But the teahouse made an exception for Western visitors, and a steaming pipe was brought to our table.

At the next table was a woman sporting one of the accessories of seduction in Iran: a bandage over her nose. With the veil covering much of a woman’s face, it seems that a nose job is as important as a Hermès scarf.

After the teahouse, we successfully tracked down a selection of papier mâché pomegranates, and visited a store specialising in reasonably priced handmade tablecloths whose colours are fixed by being washed in the river. After settling up in cash – even the hotels don’t take credit cards – we could no longer ignore Hamid’s invitation to his carpet store. At the Paradise carpet shop, the owner was happy to flick through a book on Persian rugs and talk about the nomads who only sell their carpets when they need the money.

I didn’t bring back a rug, but I did buy a tablecloth and napkins, some salted pistachios, and a blood-red papier-mâché pomegranate for around £1.50. I also came back with a mosquito bite on my ankle, two buttons missing from my overcoat, and a few grey hairs from those Iran Air flights.

By Anne Penketh

I arrived with my wife at Imam Khomeini Airport Tehran for a three week visit. We have some tenuous plans for trips outside of Tehran.
Well, the first trip is planned with a long drive up north to see the Caspian Sea, then a visit to the mountain village of Masoulah.

Tuesday morning, I awake at 7 a.m. for a leisurely preparation of our upcoming trip to the Caspian Sea, more specifically the port city of Bandar Anzali. We leave the house at 9 a.m.

The city of Tehran is always busy with traffic. While Paria’s father, Mahmoud, weaves our way westward, I notice the map and highways seem to be deficient of a numbering system possibly foretelling an interesting navigational experience. Paria has French music playing.
We reach our first city outside of Tehran, Karaj. The rocky terrain hasn’t changed and has a West Texas feel to it. A sleek metro rail passes us by connecting Karaj to Tehran. Traffic is improving.

Ghazvin, our next city, is 80 km (50 miles) away. After a cd of French music, we switch tracks at my request to older Persian music. Paria’s dad is happy. Not sure if

the idea is the smartest as Mahmoud now has his hands off the wheel clapping to the beat and has slowed the car to a snail’s pace.

We stop briefly at a rest stop. Typical of the ones in the U.S. with a gas station, convenience store, bathrooms and a mosque.

Paria takes over the wheel. We soon pass a thermal power plant that attracts my attention with what looks like a few nuclear stacks in the background. I crazily snap pictures as we drive past.

We made it to Ghazvin. The scenery is a touch greener with irrigated crops and grazing sheep. The city of Rasht is 200 km (120 m) away and is our next goal for a lunch stop. The turnoff to Rasht is confusingly closed. I think a sign advising a new exit is ahead. Paria and her father switch places. Bang! We have an Iranian special. Mahmoud decides to go 800 meters (1/2 m) back to the service station by driving in reverse - not on the shoulder, on the highway. Cars whip by obviously familiar with the technique and I wonder about the strain my neck will feel when a

car plows into us. Somehow we make it back to the station, get directions and proceed ahead to the new exit.

After the turnoff, we run through a series of small villages that remind me of Luxor, Egypt.

The highway narrows as we reach the mountains. We are on a three lane highway. Our flow of traffic only has one of those lanes so that means we are lucky to be driving 60 km/h (35 mph) due to 18 wheelers jamming up the roadway.

After a tedious time in the car, we make it to Rudbar and 2 lanes of road for us. Rudbar is a town which suffered through a bad earthquake 20 some years ago and is also famous for delicious olives.

A lake in Manjil looks delicious as we continue our journey - mostly without a/c. Hot and tired is on my menu. The water in the lake looks wonderfully cool and has a slight olive color.

We pass through a toll area but the booths were empty. Iran has a toll system for their public highways. We finally get to Rasht - hot and sweaty. Stopping on the side of the road for a break, I spot a weed or grass with dark, blueberry looking seed.

After getting directions from numerous people, we arrive at the Hotel Kadus.

Paria’s mother, Hamideh, thought the food would be good since it was a nice hotel. The restaurant didn’t disappoint us as all four of us ate a delicious large meal with lots left over for $32. I ordered Zatoon Parvardeh (olives with walnut paste - very tasty), Iranian flat bread, must (yogurt), Chelo Kebab (lamb meat) and all of it was served with a family platter of rice.

After cooling off at the hotel restaurant, we take off for our final destination, Bandar Anzali. The hotel check-in is 4 p.m. (which I think is late) and amazingly when we call the hotel from the road, they tell us our rooms won’t be ready until 6 p.m. Not what any of us hot souls wanted to hear.

Absolutely beautiful - my first glimpse of the turquoise waters of the Caspian Sea. We need to kill some time so we pull into a public beach - separate for families and men. A first for me as in the past I never was able to visit the “family” section of a beach.

I roll up my blue jeans and merrily walk in the cool water. We sit down in a covered eating area for some Iranian ice cream. I had several scoops of mystery ice cream - possibly saffron and pistachio. Delicious!
Enough time went by for us to attempt check in at the Bandar Anzali Inn. The rooms were made ready and soon we were resting in cool, comfortable rooms.

The area and hotel has a 1960’s American feel. the hotel is off the beach a good ways with a path to the sand. No shops, malls or much of anything besides a man with a skinny pony offering rides. Next door to the hotel is a flea market with cheap Russian/Chinese goods. We find a bamboo coaster set for the house at $3. I also look at Chinese backscratchers but pass on them. The evening is topped with a nice meal and we then head for bed.

Iran has been going through more power outages lately and before we could get settled in bed, the power failed. That meant no a/c with the room getting stuffy quickly plus the hotel installed a very bright emergency light in the room. It came on automatically in these situations but oops, there was no way to cut it off if someone wants to sleep. Luckily the power came back on quickly.

We awoke and had breakfast. I had fried eggs for the first time in weeks. Amazing how good something fried tastes. We checked out and headed for the mountain village of Masoulah. I was suffering from the previous day’s hot journey but recovered slightly when we stopped in a small village for these wonderful cinnamon pastries called in Persian - “Kolocheh”. Yes, just like the Czech pastry “kolache”. The Kolocheh came right out of the oven and melted in my mouth. I decided that only social graces would keep me from eating ten of those sweets.

The drive to Masoulah was about 120 km (70 m) and was much more pleasant with luscious green mountains and cooler air. The area reminded me of Northern California, more so in the feel of the place than the looks.

Masoulah is a very popular tourist village. We had trouble finding a parking place. The village is built right into the mountains with a path that weaves through the village so that as a person walks up the various levels, they have to walk on the roofs of the lower buildings. The village had foodstuff and marketable items.

After an hour or so, we needed to head back for the 400 km (250 m) ride. Eleven hours after we first left Bandar Anzali, we arrived in Tehran. Paria’s dad and mom did wonderfully on the trip while the kids, Paria and James, were exhausted.
One week from now, we leave for another trip - south to Esfahan.

by Matlockjames

National Geographic magazine has just published a great article on Iran. To read this article click here or you can download the whole magazine and read the article from page 33 to 63. To download the magazine click here.

Persia: Ancient Soul of Iran

A glorious past inspires a conflicted nation.

By Marguerite Del Giudice

Two Christian pastors have returned to Martinsville after a year and a half of study in Iran, where they set out to learn and build trust and love between the people of both nations.

Husband and wife David Wolfe and Linda Kusse-Wolfe, both Quaker ministers, studied Islam and Iranian culture at the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran, from January 2007 to May 2008.

There, they found a “very hospitable, very gracious people” and made lasting friendships, Kusse-Wolfe said.

“It was a really privileged look at a society many Americans don’t get to see,” she said.

The trip was an exchange program through the Mennonite Central Committee designed to deepen religious and cultural understanding between the East and West.

“We’ve had deep interest in reconciliation work, so when this opportunity opened up, we leaped at the chance,” Kusse-Wolfe said.

Though they are Quakers, not Mennonites, the exchange program is “open to Christians active in their church and committed to pacifism,” she added.

Kusse-Wolfe said they embarked on the trip expecting to “make good friends, do a little traveling and know what it’s like to live in a Muslim republic.”

Wolfe said they also wanted to “get a feel for all the questions we as North Americans ask about Islam. How do people live out what they believe? What does the Quran really say about different things?”

Perhaps the ultimate question is, “How do you live in a world with each other when you have significantly different histories and tradition?” Wolfe said.

“You have to do it. You have to be sociable and respectful and figure out how to get along,” he added. “Even if some of our beliefs are different, we have to find ways to respect and love each other.”

During the exchange, the couple took classes in English about the Quran, Islamic mysticism, Iranian culture and the Farsi language. But the learning didn’t end in the classroom — both were struck by the warmth and hospitality of the Iranians they met.

Before the trip, “we had people ask us, ‘Aren’t you scared to go over there?’” Kusse-Wolfe said. “I’m convinced the (Iranian) people would’ve laid down their lives for us.”

“We never heard an unkind word,” Wolfe said.

The city of Qom has a “significant number” of English-speaking people, Kusse-Wolfe said, especially among university students.

“They would almost immediately invite us home to meet their parents and share a meal,” she said. “There’s a saying in Iran that guests are friends of God. They really understand that.”

Iran is “very diverse,” with communities of Christians, Jewish people and Zoroastrians, Wolfe said.

Every other week, the couple took a train to the city of Tehran for an Armenian Christian church service. The service was in Armenian, but “someone sitting behind us would make notes in English and pop them over back of the pew to us so we could know what was going on,” Kusse-Wolfe said. “It was very kind.”

On the train ride, she added, people often would get up and offer her a seat.

While in Iran, Kusse-Wolfe had to cover her hair and wear a long cloak. The traditional women’s garment is called a chador.

“There’s still a traditional culture where women are the boss of the home and men are the boss of the public domain,” Wolfe said.

The woman’s role in Iran is “very complex,” Kusse-Wolfe said, and they are proud to have much more freedom than their counterparts in Saudi Arabia.

“Under the chador, many women have master’s degrees and Ph.D.’s. We knew female professors and business people,” Kusse-Wolfe said.

Visas between the United States and Iran are “extremely difficult to get,” Wolfe said. “We read that only about 300 American visas were accepted last year in Iran. There’s kind of a tit for tat between the countries.”

The couple had to apply for entrance and exit visas. After their experiences, Kusse-Wolfe said, “We’re encouraged now and want to support really aggressive diplomacy.”

For those who cannot travel to Iran in person, the couple put together a PowerPoint presentation from the trip. They spent five weeks in Kansas and Arkansas sharing what they learned with churches and civic groups.

Now, they hope to make presentations locally and give people a better idea of what life in Iran is really like.

“We don’t have positive media images of everyday people in Iran, and most of them are just marvelous human beings,” Kusse-Wolfe said.

Just as many Americans have misperceptions about Iranian people, television has given rise to many stereotypes about Americans.

In Iran, “satellite dishes are illegal, but a lot of people have them,” Wolfe said, which gives them access to American shows. “Think what your perception of Americans would be if your only knowledge came from movies and sitcoms.”

Some people were surprised to find out that the couple — and other Americans — believe in God, Kusse-Wolfe said. But by living their faith, they proved the stereotypes wrong.

“As we practiced our faith and shared with them, that opened a lot of doors. It meant we had integrity,” she said.

Muslims consider Jesus an important prophet, and the people they encountered showed a great respect for the couple’s faith, she added.

Muslims consider Christians and Jews to be “people of the book,” Wolfe said. “They believe that we all worship the God of Abraham, and they are all protected and have a place in Iran.”

“Islam is a great monotheistic faith, very moral and ethical, with a deep sense of community and respect,” Kusse-Wolfe said. “What impressed me was their deep practice of their faith in God.”

Explaining Christian beliefs to their Muslim hosts was educational for the couple, as well.

“We’ve learned from having to explain what we believe,” Wolfe said.

Kusse-Wolfe added, “My personal faith is certainly deeper, more joyful, more trusting now.”

Before the trip, Wolfe was the chaplain at Memorial Hospital in Martinsville, and Kusse-Wolfe ministered at First United Methodist Church.

“We’re significantly different people from having done this,” Wolfe said. “So what does this mean for our ministry? We don’t know yet.”

They do know, however, that encouraging peace and understanding begins at home.

“We could start by loving our Muslim brothers and sisters in our own towns. That would be a huge step forward for peace and friendship,” Kusse-Wolfe said. “Even if we disagree, we simply have to advocate for each other to live in peace.”

By KIM BARTO

Visit Eram Garden in Shiraz!

I take a walk just before daybreak, in the quiet before traffic has swelled to the point of making the streets almost impassable (you have to walk with faith, my friend, into oncoming cars, and hope they will have enough humanity to break for you.  Not always, I’m afraid…).  The Citadel of my ancestor and ruler of the Zand Dynasty, Karim Khan Zand, is as silent as Shiraz at night, after the street has emptied and storefronts closed down.  It is imposing and grand, with one leaning tower that even experts from Pisa could not straighten; a plaza just outside that leads to the bazaar, also build by Karim Khan, will soon be populated by merchants selling everything from paperback books to nomadic jewelry to freshly roasted pistachios.  It all exists just at the end of Zand boulevard.  So if you haven’t gotten the idea yet, this is Zand heaven.  Shiraz is to Zand as Graceland is to…okay, I’ll stop.

I wandered across to the Pars museum.  Have I mentioned this is the cultural phase of the trip?  We are now on to experience the relics of the past, see the old debris left by centuries of conquest, defeat, conquest, defeat.  Persepolis, baby.  Persepolis.  Xerxes. Cyrus.  Darius. This is the cradle of civilization.  Not to mention castle remains strewn across the countryside.  It is a rich history.

So, the Pars museum…ah, back to the Zands (mid to late 18th century–the Zand Dynasty was so short-lived it often doesn’t even warrant mentioning in books that cover this period of Persian history.  But Iranians are well aware of it, and the leadership of Karim Khan is still legendary here–a mighty but generous ruler who never took the title of shah, but instead kept regent, so as to better identify with the people.)  His remains are now across the street at the Pars Museum, along with his sword and a few other Zand artifacts.  A sign hung at the entrance, absolutely no photographs. Of course, they didn’t have postcards to purchase either. I met the director, Mohammad Reza, whose English isn’t much more than my Farsi, so we communicated in gestures and expressions, words from my dictionary chosen to represent whole ideas. (Leila, I wish you were there!) I pulled out my driver’s license to show I am a Zand. With that, he sat me down for tea. Mohammad Reza, it turns out, is something of a Zand expert, having studied them for some years now. Currently, he’s writing a book on the Zands (in Persian, of course) based on his research. He mentioned John Perry, a Zand scholar from the University of Chicago. By the time we were done, he agreed to let me take any photos I wanted.

I skipped Persepolis this trip, having visited before.  Instead, I was content to spend time just wandering.  I walked the nearby bazaar, built also by Karim Khan, and found a gabbeh rug for Ellen, made by one of the two nomadic tribes in this region. Part of the bazaar opens into a square, with shops all around. My brother Steve told me that one of the shop owners would be sure to recognize me, as he had Steve on his last visit. Sure enough, I heard someone call, “Mr. Zand, Mr. Zand!” Amazing memory, as it’s been over 3 1/2 years. I was accompanied by David and Dan, and we all ended up making purchases from his store, so no doubt he’ll remember me next time as well.

Shiraz has a much different feel than the urban squeeze of Tehran with its traffic and toxicity. At the airport I’m greeted by tall palms and warm desert air—I could be arriving in Tucson. An Iranian man tells me the women in Shiraz are the prettiest with their wine-colored lips and dark, almond eyes, and my Shiraz friends claim hipness over the competing Esfahaners. There is something about Shiraz that makes me feel like I’m breathing again walking boulvarde Zand, the air fragrant with roasted pistachios and kabobis. After all, it’s the city of wine and poetry, the resting places of Hafez and Sa’di, and their spirits move here as well, still revered by nightly visitors. At Hafez’s tomb, young people crowd beneath the canopy.  They recite from heart the sufi master’s work, many holding sparklers or candles, some draping themselves over the marble slab like bohemians at Jim Morrison’s grave. Poets are the rock stars of Shiraz. More so, because they are remembered all these hundreds of years later, continuing to inspire.  It seems about any Iranian can tell you, regardless of level of education or socio-economic background, about Hafez, Sa’di and Rumi, about  Ferdowsi’s classic epic Shahnameh, the book of kings.   Poetry is the perfume that scents this culture, permeating every level.  Maybe it’s helped that there’s never much on TV, and they’re not bombarded by commercial images.  The advertisements here, given the limitations of the female wardrobe, don’t use sex to sell things.  You don’t see billboards with “lifestyle” images.  At most, you might see a photo of a microwave incubating a half-roasted chicken.  It’s a nation devoid of saturation marketing, and perhaps that has helped preserve  these older  elements of society, as they are still relevant as common cultural references and a living part of a national dialog that crosses class lines.  And I can’t help but reflect on our own cultural conversation that is overwhelmed by celebrity gossip and ephemeral icons that inevitably fall victim to American caprice as they grow fat, or their hits fade bleakly from the top 40.  Our rock stars are sadly, only rock stars.

By Rick Zand

Visit Xerexes Gate in Persepolis!

At dusk in the ancient city of Shiraz, Iranians place flowers on the grave of the 14th-century Persian poet Háfiz, then reverently recite his poetry. This was my introduction to the love Iranians have for their rich, ancient culture.

Iran embraced many civilizations over the millennium and melded them into a unique national identity. Today the country is composed primarily of Persians, Azaris and Kurds. Proud of their Aryan/Persian roots, Iranians sometimes take offense at being called Arabs.

Iranians seem able to separate Americans from their government’s policies. While anti-American signs are common, the people themselves seduced us with their irresistibly warm welcome. We were often surrounded by crowds of children and adults, endlessly curious about us and America. Soldiers passing by in a truck flashed the peace sign when they heard we were Americans.

Iran is clean, modern and safe. Tehran, the smog-filled capital, is surrounded by beautiful mountains. There, the modest home of Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Shah, contrasts with the Shah’s opulent palaces. Everywhere are beautiful murals, memorials to martyrs or clerics and illustrations of verse.

Teahouses, the primary places of social interaction, overflow with vibrant conversations. Most of the main food options in restaurants are kebabs, served with bread and rice, with pistachio candies for desert. Outside Tehran are vast deserts, lakes and snowcapped mountains. We visited Qom, Iran’s conservative religious center, and the crown jewels of Iranian history, Persepolis and Esfahan.

Persepolis, Darius the Great’s 518 BCE glorious religious hub, was destroyed circa 333 BCE by Alexander the Great. Esfahan’s centerpiece is the huge, 16th-century Naqsh-E Jahan Square, flanked on three sides by majestic blue-mosaiced palaces and domed mosques, their tiled minarets reaching toward the heavens. In the square, one gets lost in the maze of bazaars, with their arrays of artistic goods for sale — calligraphy, carpets, metal work, engraving, paintings.

Despite numerous invasions, Iranians have maintained their deep religious and social values and culture. The essence of their culture is rich with meaning and deeply sensual, as evidenced by its love of music and poetry. Musician Hossein Alizadeh spoke to us of how singing Háfiz’s poems connects him with his culture.

Today, Iran struggles to balance modern influences with beloved tradition. At one gathering in a private home, an Iranian-American youth played traditional music on the tar and daf, ancient instruments. At another gathering, a young man played the “Jelly Roll Blues” on piano. He was the son of our hosts, filmmaker Khosrow Sinai (whose film, “Bride of Fire,” recently played at the High Falls Film Festival in Rochester), and his wife, artist Farah Ossouli. Sinai summed up the contrasts, saying, “If tradition and modernity don’t come to an understanding with each other, there will be catastrophe.”
Unlike many other Middle Eastern nations, Iran has elected officials. Besides Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism are officially recognized and represented in parliament. As a Shia Islamic republic, power in Iran lies with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and the Assembly of Experts, who elect him. Laws are based on the ayatollahs’ interpretation of the holy Qur’an.

Most cultural activities are under government censorship, which often leads to repression of ideas considered alien to Islam. All women, including tourists, must wear the hijab (scarf) and manteau, a coat that extends to the knees, in public. Only in conservative religious cities like Qom are women seen in black chadors (not berkas), which are full-length “gowns.”

For some, the hijab is a symbol of modesty; for others, oppression. Under the Shah, women were forbidden to wear it, therefore, many parents chose not to send their daughters to school. Today, over 65 percent of college students are women. The hijab has become a fashion statement and Iranian women constantly push the envelope, hair tumbling out of colorful silk scarves and sequined jeans under their coats. Women are very much present in artistic, cultural and professional areas despite many Islamic prohibitions.

Our group of 14 included several American experts in Iranian history, government, religion and nuclear issues. We were sponsored by an Iranian government group, giving us access to political leaders, religious figures such as ayatollahs, archbishops of the Armenian and Caldean Churches and members of the Jewish community. We also attended a multi-nation meeting about Iran’s nuclear program, at which Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Mottaki spoke.

I was most touched by our conversation with Mohammed Khatami, former president of Iran and a leader of the reform movement. His engaging manner and surprising footwear (penny loafers) contrasted with his black robe and turban. The black turban indicates that he is a direct descendant of Mohammed. He hopes for better relations with the United States, calling for “a dialogue of civilizations,” but says the Bush administration has destroyed these hopes by ignoring Iran’s numerous offers for unconditional negotiations. He remarked, “Despite the hostile confrontation between our two countries, we can look deep down and find factors that serve the interest of both countries.”

The message we heard repeatedly was that Iran does not want war, does not have a modern history of expansionism, and has repeatedly called for a nuclear-free Middle East. And, Iran believes it has the right to a role in regional decisions and is concerned about America’s attempts to diminish it.

Many Iranians we met expressed strong dissatisfaction with their government, but resented outside interference in their country. “You can help us by leaving us alone to solve our own problems,” one woman said, a sentiment echoed by the Armenian archbishop.

Iran is full of contradictions and often seen through a distorted political lens. It’s not a paragon of democracy, nor is it part of an “Axis of Evil.”

Unfortunately, politics causes us to lose sight of the universal core of humanity that could unite us as friends if the madness of fear and war were not so prevalent.

By Lynda Howland

Try Iranian food!

A foodie noshes his way around modern Iran.

You think you’ll find tuna on a bagel in Iran?” my assistant Kathy asked as I shut down my computer for the next three weeks. I laughed. Finding my favorite lunch was the least of my concerns. I was, after all, traveling to a country that President Bush identified as one-third of the Axis of Evil.

I’d wanted to visit Iran for years to view its ancient monuments and to understand this country that was closed off to Americans for a generation. But there never seemed to be a good time, and now was no exception. There’s been recent U.S. saber-rattling over the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s involvement in Iraq, and ever-pressing questions about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and support for terrorist groups. That’s not to mention the hateful pronouncements from its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And yet, much to the consternation of family and friends, I was determined to go.

I was concerned for my safety, of course, but what would I eat in a country known as much for its meat and kebabs as for its exquisite carpets? Given that I follow Jewish dietary laws and eat only kosher meat, I expected to adopt a largely vegetarian and fish diet during my journey. Just in case, I stocked up on granola bars and packets of instant oatmeal.

I arrived in the middle of the night, and was met by immigration officials who took their time questioning and fingerprinting me. This lengthy welcome was instituted in response to similar treatment of Iranian nationals visiting the U.S. My guide, Cyrus, and Joseph, my driver, waited patiently until nearly 4:00AM., then dropped me at my new temporary home: the Laleh International Hotel, formerly the Intercontinental Hotel before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Save for the Intercontinental trash bins in its guest rooms, the Laleh retains little vestige of its past.

After a few hours of rest, I returned to the lobby to meet Cyrus, Joseph and Carl, a Canadian artist and university professor who would prove to be a perfect travel companion. Though 66-years-old, Carl was hale and hearty, which he attributed to early rising, yoga and a meat-free diet. Knowing our food constraints, Cyrus took us to the Coffee Shop & Veggie Restaurant of the Iranian Artists Forum, a stone’s throw from the former U.S. Embassy where American hostages were held for 444 days. They were released when Ronald Reagan took the Presidential oath of office on January 20, 1981. Today, with anti American slogans and murals painted on its outer walls – including the Statue of Liberty’s face rendered as a skull – the facility is home to the Den of Espionage museum.

The Iranian Artists Forum is a world apart from politics and international intrigue. It hosts performances, film screenings, art exhibitions, lectures and the only vegetarian café of its kind in the country. It was opened eight years ago by Behrang Aman, now the restaurant manager, and professor Bozorgmehr Golbidi, a European-educated food industry expert and one-time Stockholm disco manager. The pair also oversees the only vegetarian supermarket in the country, where they make tofu and vegetarian cheese and prepare traditional Iranian dishes using meat substitutions.

“In Iran, people aren’t familiar with vegetarianism,” Aman said, as he seated us on the terrace. “They think it’s only vegetables, so they’re surprised when they come here.” The menu was indeed, a surprise, and we ordered the Lotus Set, which included rice, veggie stew, soup, salad, pakora (deep-fried vegetables), a slice of pizza, vanilla pudding and a fruit drink.

Over the next several weeks, my 2,100-mile Iranian adventure was as much punctuated by visits to magical sites and extraordinary encounters with warm and welcoming people, as it was by frequent culinary surprises. Joseph always seemed to know the most scenic rest stops, whether alongside a river or at a mountain pass. Spread out on the trunk of the car, he poured cups of cinnamon tea while Cyrus opened up a pouch filled with a mix of pistachios, walnuts, almonds, cashews, sultanas and dried mulberries. But the real jewels were apricots the size of silver dollars, chewy, sweet and moist. In Kermanshah, an ancient city 325 miles west of Tehran (and just 75 miles from the Iraqi border), we met several bakers who were eager to show off the local specialties. Naan berenji are round white cookies that melt in your mouth; naan gandi is sugar bread that went perfectly with the evening’s tea.

That’s not to say that we ate only snacks. Fish kebabs and vegetable omelets were everywhere. Then there are dishes like ash-e reshteha soup of noodles, mint, beans, spices and ground vegetables with fried onions and yogurt; and dolmeh peppers stuffed with rice, beans and vegetables; and mirza ghasemi, a mixture of eggplant, tomato, egg and garlic. I reveled in the simplicity of steamed turnips and marveled at the number of rice dishes — one with dill, beans and garlic was a particular favorite — and the varieties of yogurts, whether plain, with shallots or with celery.

Desserts, too, were a pleasant surprise. Though I didn’t take to the saffron- and rosewater-flavored treats, a Shiraz specialty called faludeh was more than enough for my sweet tooth. These starch-like noodles are made from rice or potatoes, and flavored with lemon juice and other toppings. Ma’joon is a mixture of milk, walnuts, banana, honey, nuts (including pistachios) plus cocoa and ice cream; some versions are topped with ground figs and coconut. I sampled hard candy made from the zesty zanjafil while waiting in an Isfahan carpet shop for my purchases to be wrapped. And there’s nothing quite like eating halva in a country that’s been making it for thousands of years.

But my biggest culinary surprise was yet to come. As it turns out, there are kosher butchers in Iran. They serve a community of between 11,000 and 20,000 Jews (estimates of Iran’s remaining Jewish population vary). In Tehran, Shiraz and Isfahan, I was invited to Sabbath dinners, which follow Friday night services at the synagogues. We started with the traditional prayer over wine (which though it was banned following the 1979 Islamic revolution, Jews are allowed to make for religious observances). In place of challah, the braided bread that’s familiar to European Jews, was sangyak, a flat bread with holes. Dinner itself was a parade of dishes, starting with fresh fruit and followed by spicy beef stews, pungent chicken dishes and tadik, a layer of crispy rice that’s taken from the bottom of the pan. Thanks to Cyrus and Joseph, I was able to impress my hosts with the food-related Farsi words, the most important being hoshmaz: “delicious.”

Three weeks later, as my journey across Iran came to close, I thought back on the fascinating people I’d met and beautiful places I’d seen. But most of all, I remembered the food. On my last afternoon in Iran, I asked Cyrus and Joseph to drop me off at the grocery store down the street from the Laleh hotel. I wanted to pick up some Iranian tea and fig jam. When I unzipped my backpack, Cyrus peered inside.

I showed him my stash of emergency food–the granola bars and instant oatmeal. We laughed at my overabundance of caution as I removed the packages from my backpack. I needed to make room for all that I’d bought.

“As we say in the U.S.,” I said as I handed them over to my new friend ‘It’s like bringing sand to the beach’.”

Visit the Armenian Churches!

I never said too much of this for fear of attracting all the wrong attentions but I once travelled to Iran.

Now that Obama is president, it’s time to tell travel stories.

Iran, is a fascinating co