Tissue Boxes, but no Toilet Paper: General Impressions from a May – June 2015 Journey across Iran
I wasn’t sure what to expect on my trip to Iran. Friends, family and colleagues had all expressed concern with my desire to visit the archeological sites in the Islamic Republic as they had visions of my landing in an Iranian jail given reports of Western journalists and hikers held captive indefinitely. These concerns are valid for those who transgress Iranian laws, as they would be for any country whose laws have been violated, or for those who believe that the theocracy would tolerate free speech and a free press. Clearly staunch orthodoxy in any religion does not foster critical thinking. On the other hand, our media does a good job of providing a slanted view of the country as it only concentrates on political events, specifically on the on-going negotiations regarding nuclear energy, the Iranian support for the Houthis in Yemen, their support of Assad in Syria, and of their support for Hezbollah in Lebanon. As these groups are not our allies, we continue with tribal ritual in which the friends of your enemy are also your enemy. And Israel, who is very closely aligned with the U.S. political landscape, has a decidedly negative attitude towards Iran, which also colors our media’s reportage. When Iran is mentioned it is usually in regard to one of three people, the Supreme LeaderAyatollah Ali Khamenei, President Rouhani, or Foreign Minister Zarif as if this triad summarized all that was important about the country. Nothing could be further from what I found during my travels. While these three are the public face of the country on the outside and the first two lead the country’s government and political processes internally, the people appear to go about their daily lives in spite of politics. As I weighed the risk/benefit to my research for going, I read countless accounts from European and North Americans who had recently been to the country. They all expressed how amazed they were at Iranian hospitality and were very glad they had visited Iran. I can now add my voice to that chorus.
Europeans can travel to Iran individually, but most of the people I met were traveling in organized bus tours. The majority of tourists come from Germany, France, Italy and Spain, with just a few North Americans or British. Citizens of the English speaking nations are not allowed to travel without a pre-set itinerary and guide; the visa will only be issued after obtaining a letter from the tour company. Internet searches turned up irun2iran.com among others and after a few emails, determined that I would go with them as Laleh was incredibly helpful, returned emailed questions with detailed answers within 24 hours, and even went into one of my online courses to make sure I could teach online while there. I teach in the summer to pay for the research trips, and couldn’t access our course management system in China, so I wanted to make sure that it would be possible before committing to this trip. It was, and I had no problem accessing the university system, although I did have trouble getting some of the scholarly sites I regularly use such as academia.edu, many of the sites dealing with Ancient Persia, or any of the social media sites. It didn’t seem like there was any rhyme or reason to the censorship, but it was there, and it was frustrating. It was also fascinating to have Yahoo’s news feeds come from Dubai rather than from London or the U.S. The Dubai feeds have even more about entertainers and sports and less about politics and global issues than the ones I am used to seeing. While we are all impacted by global events, we live our lives based on personal relations, and this is what made my trip so incredibly rich. People of all walks of life, young and old, came up to me to talk, often only with hands and facial gestures as we couldn’t understand each other’s language, but the message was clear, they were welcoming me to their country. One fellow summarized the general sentiment very nicely, “Americans good people, Iranians good people, governments crazy.” I couldn’t agree more.
One of the pre-conceived notions that I had arrived with was the severe repression of women and that every woman had to wear a chador or dark colored jacket called a manteau and a hijab/head scarf. The law states that all females over the age of seven must have their heads, ears and neck covered as well as their arms and feet down to their ankles. Tight-fitting clothes are not actually against the law and are subject to interpretation by the morality police. Pres. Rouhani has recently made efforts to have the police concentrate more on criminal activity than patrolling women’s apparel, but even if he is successful with legislation unless the Supreme Leader makes a statement on the issue men in control at the local level will continue to exert their power over the opposite sex. A recent article mentioned that the upwards of 80% of the 1,400 arrests and fines in one major city last year were related to women’s apparel. Nonetheless, there is clearly a change going on. More young people, especially in the cities, wore very tight-fitting bright colored clothes, including leggings, and scarves that were placed as far back on their heads as possible without falling off. In the rural areas of the desert, this is different, specifically in Yazd, Ni’an, and Kashan where even the little girls were wearing complete black chadors. Near the entrances to some of the mosques is a poster showing a woman in a complete black chador with the inscription: “A chador is the way to paradise.” Hmmm. I’ll refrain from commenting. But again, this is the official position of the Islamic Republic, and doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone believes or follows this line of thought. At many of the shrines, I witnessed prayer rooms filled with black covered women, young and old, sitting with their Korans reciting suras or praying with their bismillahs (Islamic prayerbeads), but I also saw these same people talking on their cell phones with family and friends while there. The shrines may be a place of worship for the deceased saint/imam or member of the imam’s family, but they also function as community centers and as such one follows the rules of the community. Outside the mosques and shrines, there was a colorful array of clothing styles, and if one wanted to visit one of the sacred sites, there were always bedsheets available near the entrance to use as a chador. No, I am not kidding, they use actual floral or patterned bedsheets. It can be quite a challenge to hold the bedsheet over one’s head and body while trying to take photographs. As the bedsheet has to go on top of the scarf, which I could never get to stay in place, I was constantly struggling with cloth. There may be an ulterior motive here; keep the women concentrating on clothing and then they can’t think about anything important…. Or have them always in a chador and under control…. But this is only a problem at the Islamic sacred sites, not in the general public, where there is increasingly more tolerance at least in some of the major cities. Change does not come easily, though, and while I was in Rey I watched an exchange between shopkeeper and an elegant young woman. She was minding her own business looking at her phone, when the man approached her and spoke to her in a fatherly tone. It was obvious they didn’t know each other, so I asked my guide for a translation as we were close enough to hear. It seems the shopkeeper was telling her that although she was probably a good person, she was dressed to attract attention and that was not a good thing. For her own benefit, she should dress so that people would not be attracted to her. The young woman very politely thanked him and went on her way. I didn’t get the feeling she was going to adapt her ways or look, but she also didn’t want to get into a discussion with a predetermined outcome.
Along with attitudinal differences about attracting attention are changes in public displays of affection and the number of women in the workplace. I didn’t see anyone hug or kiss a member of the opposite sex during the three weeks, but I did see a number of young couples holding hands in public or cuddling next to each other on the restaurant flat-benched tables. These dining areas are common throughout Central Asia; they are raised rectangular spaces covered with rugs and pillows. The food is served in the middle of the area with the people bare-footed sitting on the periphery. The design contributes to the communal nature of the meal. I also learned that the majority of university students today are women. It will be interesting to see how the next generation of university students influences the country’s customs over the next decade or so. Many of the young people, including women, are starting their own businesses. Sometimes they have to do so under their father or husband’s name, but they are running the company. On the other hand, in the rural areas men in their forties or older would not accept payment for whatever it was I was purchasing, be it perfume, fruit, or scarves, directly from me. I had to hand my riales to Amir, my guide/driver/translator and friend, who would pay the vendor. If there was change coming back, the vendor would hand that to Amir, who would then pass it along to me.
Contrary to the Central Asian nations, in Iran there didn’t seem to be any discrepancy in the sex of drivers in the traffic-clogged cities. Women driving cars were as common as men, although I didn’t see any women truck drivers. The roads connecting cities, which are filled with trucks, were in fairly good condition. So good that it is easy to overlook the speed limit, but they have the same speed cops as we have, with the same kinds of cameras – this appears to be a global driving nuisance and police everywhere increase their agency’s income at the general driving public’s expense. In addition to the speed controls, there are also security controls on the roads into all the major cities and intermittently on the roads leading to the borders. This has historical as well as current reasons. The border with Iraq was the site of the brutal war with that country in the 1980s when almost every Iranian family lost a loved one. At the entrance to each town, village, city, are posters of the boys and men (rarely that of women) who died as ‘martyrs’ for the country. As the Ayatollah proclaimed in English from signage by Daniel’s Tomb in Susa (this is Daniel of the Lion’s Den fame), “The Manifestation of Iran’s Power are the Martyrs.” This language can be coupled with another poster, also in English, that I saw in Shiraz that said “Yemen, you are not alone, We will not abandon you.” More martyrs for the cause? Another reason for the border security is the influx of illegal drugs and people from Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is a whole subset of illegal Afghanis refugees trying to escape the horrors in their native country living in villages and cities in Iran. The immigration issues are similar to those along the U.S. Mexico border. Afghani women sit cross-legged in the bazaars selling their hand-woven prickly geometric patterned carpets for only a few dollars. They have no official place of residence, no health insurance, and no other means to earn a living. The plight of the world’s immigrants is going to be increasingly a problem for all more or less stable countries. The social and infrastructure issues caused by illegal immigration, especially in countries with rising native populations like Iran that has doubled in population since the 1979 Revolution, are not easily resolved.
On the side of most of the long haul roads in the North there are street vendors selling fruits from the trees and local wares. In the Northwest, one of the specialties was pressed plums, apricots, or cherries that were flattened into sheets and covered with an Iranian equivalent of Glad-wrap. A little taste of this was quite potent; I’m not sure what else they did to make it so much more powerfully tangy than the fruit alone would have been. Other specialties included a variety of sticky sweets and some very good macaroon-like cookies. In the Central and Southern parts, trucks filled with the melons came into view. The melons, cantaloupe and watermelon mostly, were delicious.
Upon entering the towns and cities after passing by the martyrs, there is almost always a huge town monument. The last Shah built a beautiful structure for Tehran, and since then most other communities have followed suit. Some are various renditions of the general idea of the gate in the capital, but others reflect the local heritage, be it warriors or something more agriculturally based like bees. In addition to the town or city’s mosque, there are increasingly more local shrines. I was told that they are springing up all over the country. Now it is no longer just the former Imams who are revered, but also their family members. Some Imams, like Huseyn, have their children’s tombs scattered all over the land. He must have had as many children as Ramses II of Egypt based on the number of shrines related to his offspring. But in a country where the very traditional towns, like Yazd, do not have a cinema, the shrine becomes the place of communal activity. It is similar to how life was in the Middle Ages in Europe; it all focused around the church/cathedral.
The mosques display more differences based on the era in which they were constructed than regional attributes. Some have Ilkhanid – Mongol (ca. 13th C) painted plasterwork, others more Timurid era (ca. 14th-15th C) turquoise tiled domes and calligraphy, while others the Safavid (16th to early 18th C) painted stalactite honey-comb cornices. Some use mosaics, other’s painted glazed and some, like the one in Isfahan, both. There is also no set number of minarets, the most common being two or four, but there are a number with only one. More modern Iranian minarets look like brightly painted birthday cake candles, and are very different from the Turkish rocket like towers. Also in contrast to the Sunni neighbor to the north, the modern domes glisten with golden bronze sheeting, whereas in the north they are mostly silverish. The Iranian love for poetry comes out in the call for prayers. The muezzins here sound as if they are reciting beautiful melodies. In Turkey I find the loudspeakers that blare out the grating sounds of the dictates to be Brechtian hammers.
The towns do have distinct heritages, however, and that comes through not only in their food but in their crafts, specifically in the carpets. The carpets in the north are primarily wool, as they are in Ni’an, but in Shiraz and Isfahan, they are mixed with silk. They are often exquisite and very expensive. Each area has its own particular set of designs. For those who can’t afford a carpet a kilim may do, this is a flat woolen weave, or a partial carpet, partial kilim that creates interesting 3-D designs. In Tabriz and Shiraz, there is also a specialty for little hook-rugs that create pictures, some of which have European boudoir scenes or those from Greek mythology, which I found fairly hilarious. The real pictorial carpets, however, are often masterworks. One hanging in a shop in the bazaar in Tabriz portrayed creation with Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, patriarchs from the Biblical Stories, and prophets from Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions. It was a stunning image and truly amazing woven masterpiece.
Regional differences are also apparent in the styles of the houses. In the South and in the Royal Golestan Palace in Tehran, there are Wind Towers, which were constructed as cooling mechanisms. The basic concept behind them is similar to a swamp cooler, and while it didn’t seem they got the houses very cool, they did offset the severe heat of the desert. Near the Persian Gulf and in the Central Desert, the temperature can rise upwards of 65 degrees Celsius (149 F). I was told the government doesn’t allow the media to report anything higher than 49 degrees (120F) as at 50 they have to shut down offices. Everyone knows, however, that 49 means something much higher. It was ‘only’ 47 (116F) when we were in Susa and Ahvaz at the end of May and that was as hot as Yuma and Phoenix in the middle of the summer, which is too hot for me. It is also too hot for the birds, and pigeon towers were erected to attract the guano producing avians. Their refuse was considered the best fertilizer for those delicious melons.
Traditional Iranian houses have gardens and there does seem to be a more or less set pattern for them, which goes back at least to the Safavid period. The courtyard in the center of the traditional complex has garden plots near the four corners of the rectangle or square yard. In the center is a shallow pool with fountain. Melons would be kept cool in the pool’s waters. Walkways along the periphery and forming a cross separate the garden plots from the water display. This provides shady places benches and a cooler more beautiful setting than being outside on the street. Many of the traditional houses and madressas have winter and summer rooms, with one side of the courtyard used during one season and the other during the other. I’ve seen this design in some of the traditional houses of the Roman elite in former Scabia by Pompeii.
Today’s hotel accommodations differ by region as well. The best hotels, the ones with actual shower stalls and beds one could sleep in for example, were on the main tourist route between Shiraz and Tehran. The accommodations in the Northwest were adequate, but more of a 1-2 star than 3 star variety. The people who ran the hotels were all very friendly; they just didn’t have much to work with. Showers are simply the hose on a hook in the corner of the tiny bathroom. Everything gets unavoidably wet. On the other hand, the hotels (and the major museums) do have Western styled toilets, which basically no other place does. And they have toilet paper, which doesn’t even exist in the museums. All the hotel rooms have tissue paper, as do the restaurants, but there are no napkins or toilet paper. It’s purely a BYOTP country. And while you are at it, it might be good to bring a camping air mattress. In traditional Iranian homes and in the caravanserai people sleep on a thin mattress on the floor often in groups. Many of the mattresses in the hotels are similarly rock hard as are the pillows. If you find this is uncomfortable, as I did, plan ahead and bring something soft with you.
Breakfast usually comes with the room; it often consists of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, a vegetable barley soup and some flat bread. Occasionally there will be yogurt and an egg. Coffee is the instant packaged variety, but the teas are quite good. There are a lot of options for dinner. Iranians eat a fair amount of lamb and chicken, although pork, beef, fish and vegetarian meals are all easily available. The kebabs are good and cheap. They normally come with a grilled tomato, onion and large chile pepper.
When traveling in lands where one doesn’t speak the language, the expertise of the guide/translator is crucial to the success of the journey. I was very fortunate to have had two excellent guides/translators. They were able to help not just in daily interactions, but in deciphering what some of the signage at the sites said. Museum translations are often not the top priority for funding, which leads to sometimes inaccurate or misleading information. Unless one can clear up confusions with some one who knows both languages, one can come away with a very skewed understanding of the site. A simple example of this is a mistranslation of the Elamite goddess Kiririsha, that the plaque called the ‘large’ goddess. As I had seen a unidentified votive figure at the neighboring ziggurat’s museum with large hips, I wondered whether this in fact could be the ‘large’ goddess. It turns out, though, that the translation should not have been ‘large’ but ‘great,’ which makes her part of the larger family of mother goddesses, and doesn’t refer to any specific physical attribute. The translators are also able to explain some of the stories, many of which are the same, but refer to different people in differing regions. Sargon the Great’s (ca. 23rd C BCE) story about being abandoned as an infant and sent down the river in a reed boat to be found by a princess and brought up in a royal court is also told about Moses (? ca. 1200 BCE) and Cyrus the Great (6th C BCE). The story of a young girl trying to escape capture and being rescued by a mountain opening up to protect her is told in Nokhur, Turkmenistan, Rey and Chak Chak. These three places are now pilgrimage sites for three different religions, even though they are based on the same story.
Stories influence which sites become preserved and which are left to the sands of time. The Sassanian (224 -651 CE) and Islamic (those after 651) sites have received far more protection and support than the earlier Elamite (2nd to 1st millennium BCE) or Achaemenid (550-330 BCE) cities and temples. Persepolis has been extensively excavated, but there is much more to do at Pasargardae, and Estakhr, which was the major city after Persepolis, has not been touched. These sites have much to teach us about how the people of Darius III’s (380-330 BCE) reign and shortly thereafter lived. Yet, I found that there was much more interest and knowledge about the theocratical Sassanids, whose priests ruled the Empire through the Emperor, than there was for the religious tolerance practiced by the early Achaemenid rulers. Both were successful Empires, but it would have been easier to live in a province under Cyrus the Great than under Shapur the Great (ca. 240-270 CE) .
Empires come and go, and their destruction is often caused by environmental as well as political turmoil. The ancient Persians were excellent engineers and as early as during Cyrus’s time brought water from the mountains to the desert, thereby making it possible to grow crops and sustain cities. Water, along with air, is perhaps our most precious resource. Iran is blessed with two coasts, the Caspian and the Persian Gulf. It has been thinking about desalinization plants as the ongoing drought has dried up many of the rivers. In the North, the Aras River still flows as a border between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran, and in Isfahan the water in the river was flowing, but just about everywhere else the riverbeds were bone dry. Groundwater has also been severely depleted, and they may soon be facing California-sized water problems. As with the coastal state in the U.S., the northern Iranian mountains didn’t receive the snow they needed this past winter to fill the reservoirs; they are hoping for more next year. Legend says that the world will end when there is no snow on Mt. Sabalan; that day may be coming and when the glacier is gone, it may well seem like the end of the world.
Iran is a fascinatingly complex country. It has an amazingly rich cultural heritage with 28 world heritage sites, including isolated relief panels, gardens, and some whole cities. The country has a hidden and almost lost goddess-worshipping heritage covered by millennia of patriarchal rule. It is a highly regulated nation, and yet one where in spite of external pressures the people manage to enjoy themselves with communal meals, picnics, and a hope for a better more financially secure future. New housing developments, although they are hideous to look at, provide young couples the ability to move out of their parent’s houses and form their own lives. Entrepreneurship is on the rise with Iranians returning from abroad to help build their country as well as with university graduates, who often start many different businesses just to see what will work. A young woman who graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree from one of the leading universities, now owns and operates a very good little coffee shop off the main square in Tehran, another young woman with a Master’s in translation owns and operates a language school, two fellows who returned from their studies in the U.S. are setting up an IT company, another young man with a degree in English is opening a publishing company. These are just a few of the many personal stories of hope for the future that I came across. It is an exciting time of change for the country. When I asked how this might be spurred by the removal of the sanctions, I was surprised by the very Iranian response that whatever happens with the government, it probably won’t reach the people, and that they will have to fend for themselves. As they have in the past made a ‘paradise’ out of the desert, I have no doubt they will do so again.
I sincerely want to thank all who made my journey so incredibly wonderful and safe. The reflections and opinions I heard were not just from my guides, but from people who simply approached me on the street or in the hotel. They were reaching out to a stranger, welcoming me to their country and wanting to share their personal stories and the beauty of their land. I am deeply grateful.
The tissue boxes were for tears in realizing that politics and politicians, from both countries, put policies in place that hinder people of good will from working together to solve mutual problems. They are also for those who love their country but live elsewhere. Many of the families I met have relatives living in Europe or North America. They are sorely missed. Someday, maybe, there will be true freedom of movement and thought so that those who left Iran in search of a better life elsewhere will be able to return if they so choose without concern for repercussions. Then the tissue boxes will be used for tears of joy.
FYI: I adapted the official tour found athttp://www.irun2iran.com/iran-world-heritage-tour-unesco/ to include a few additional sites, including Mt. Damavand, Rey, Alvaz, Qadamgah, the Jolfe region by Azerbaijan, Ni’an, and the Anahita sites throughout the country.
