In Azerbaijan (Iran)

In Tabriz, Dawoud told me that he had got some back problems recently which he was trying to cure in regular trips to Daryacheh Orumiyeh, a huge (6000 square kilometers) super-salty lake in the northwestern corner of Iran. It is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, about 50 km west of the capital of the Azerbaijan province, Tabriz. There is a special worm living in the water, called Artimasalema. Its remains become over time, a sort of tar which is said to heal rheumatism and other ailing of the joints. When doing the trip twice a week or so, Dawoud always had a bucket and brought some of the tar to his home in Tabriz. Dawoud suggested that I join him and Alireza for an afternoon trip to the site when the bazaar was closed. He drove his old BMW and we had a great time. Unfortunately, the lens of my camera was a bit dirty, what I noticed only when at home. So, some of the pictures have a very old-fashioned ‘paper print touch’.

We approached the lake by passing a huge white and glitzy salt desert, a bit like a moon landscape. Dawoud knew a place with a sandy but hot beach and some cabins for changing cloths. Alireza and Dawoud wanted to swim in the super-salty waters (similar as the Dead Sea). I walked on the beach and took some photos. A family had a picnic and invited me. The Azeri people are, as always, incredibly hospitable. I talked a bit about my profession and my life in Kuwait. On our way back we visited a small village where Dawoud met some carpet weavers doing their job. It is amazing to see the men(!) weaving the famous Tabriz carpets here. Back in the bazaar in Tabriz, Dawoud also introduced me to one of his colleagues who was specialized in repairing old carpets and rugs. It was almost incredible how thoughtfully he restored the real antique pieces.



















On another occasion, a public holiday, we visited Kandovan the Cappadocia of Iran. It is located 50 km south of Tabriz and was the destination of dozens of tourists from Iran who wanted to have a good time with some kebab, chay, Turkish coffee, or Seven-up. The soft, chimney-like tuff rocks allow people for centuries to hollow out their rooms and built their small houses.

















Two girls in their colorful dresses were cleaning a carpet with a lot of water and a brush. Dawoud told me why not take a picture. I was rather hesitant but finally did it. The girls were terrified and tried to escape. When the brothers showed, we had to disappear quickly in the crowd. Rather self-evident: better not take pictures of people without asking them beforehand!





On our way back, the BMW got a flat tire and Dawoud decided to get the tire-tube changed rather than changing the whole tire which hardly had any visible profile left. Too expensive. But we had to hurry, anyway. Dawoud had an invitation for a dinner when he wanted to introduce me to his friend, a famous dentist in Tabriz. The food was delicious, Dr. Qudsi had a beautiful wife, and we had a nice evening. Next morning, Dawoud picked me up from the Azerbaijan Hotel in Tabriz and drove me to the airport, from where I departed to Mashhad, Iran’s holy city in the other corner of the country.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady Shatita

Image
In order to learn more about Shi’a Islam and the piety of ordinary people it would have been most helpful to visit at least some of the plenty of Emamzadehs (holy sites) all over Iran. So, it was a most welcome opportunity and, in fact, great honor when my Kuwaiti friends invited me to accompany them on their several bus trips in Khorasan on the occasion of their 2006 pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mashhad. Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empires each embraced half of the then known world when they climaxed. And even when Iran was under the reign of Seleucids, Arabs, Seljuks, or Mongols, the Iranians imprinted their lifestyle and culture on the non-welcome invaders, who in any sense immensely benefited. So, the austere new religion Islam, which replaced Iran’s state religion Zoroastrianism, was fundamentally reorganized, and, as I see it as an outsider, filled with life. The rapid and shocking decline of the Sasanid Empire at the end of a century-long fight with Byzantium, and the ...
Read more

Persianization

Image
Kuwait’s Arab Times had attracted my attention to Esfahan’s gorgeous Great Mosque in an article in 2003. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find so far a webpage of the article which praised the wonders of Iran’s largest mosque and one of the most significant and finest buildings of the Islamic world. I visited the site the first time at my second trip to Esfahan in late spring of 2004. I took some pictures in the vast courtyard, soaked the peaceful atmosphere there, and watched the few visitors from Iran and elsewhere. I had forgotten about the many details of the article and faintly had read some of the notes in my travel guide. My second visit in late 2007 was driven by scientific interest. I had recently posted (at Freelance ) my rather amateurish studies and thoughts about a suggested ‘conceptual breakthrough’ in Islamic architecture and art in the late 15th century, i.e., quasi-crystalline tessellations, which had led to world-wide attention due to its publication in the Science magazine...
Read more

Buyid Architecture in Esfahan

Image
Older than what is now visible in Esfahan’s Great Mosque (although the first mosque there was built in the 7th century) is what has remained of the Jurjir Mosque . The fragmentary façade of the Jurjir Mosque had been discovered during restoration work at Masjed-e Hakim in 1955. The fragment had been hidden for centuries behind a mud wall. The beautiful Hakim mosque itself is a Safavid mosque from the 17th century. The Jurjir façade is the only remains of a 10th century mosque which was commissioned by the Buyid (Buwayhid) vizier Al-Sahib ibn Abbad (d. 995), a Mutazilite scholar. The Buyid Dynasty, who ruled in Iraq and Iran, effectively brought the Abbasids era in Baghdad to an end. Although the Abbasids retained the caliphate, they were deprived of all secular power. Buyids were originally Zaydi, or Fiver Shi'as. They later began to lean closer to the nowadays dominating Twelver Shi'a branch of Islam. In general tolerant in religious matters, the Buyid rulers in Baghdad even ...
Read more