Salmiya

“You might see here landscapes you have never seen before.” My young friend Mojtaba, who had been waiting in vain for my return to Kashan in 2006, had emailed me pictures he had taken with other Westerners on trips to the desert and the Daryacheh Namak, the great salt lake northeast to the small desert city. That time, I couldn’t get a visa to Iran. I was still living in Kuwait and officers at the Iranian Embassy were not really friendly then. International tensions about Iran’s nuclear program, I had assumed. When traveling to Esfahan this year, I planned a stopover in Kashan. I didn’t meet Mojtaba, but made new friends. Hami and his twin sister Hoda took me to Dasht-e Kavir, and in fact, I saw breathtaking sceneries very much different from the desert in Kuwait. Dasht-e Kavir, the northern desert of Iran’s two major deserts (the other is Dasht-e Lut), is huge. It stretches about 800 km from west to east and is 350 km wide, making up altogether more than 77’000 square kilometers. We s...

Kashan at the border of Iran’s Dasht-e Kavir, is a very relaxed city in Central Iran. It harbors one of Iran’s (and in fact the world’s) oldest settlements at Tappeh-ye Seyalk . There are tree alleys which invite for extended walks through the city. Fin garden is one of Irans finest parks, a real imagination of paradise (a Persian word). Main activities of business and communication are done, as usual in Iran, in the bazaar. Its beautiful domed roof is rather famous and was built in the Qajar period. Here, ancient caravanserais and mosques, old and new goods, and the famous Kashan carpets can be discovered. The old Sultan Mir Ahmed Hamam is now a relaxing tea house. Kashan’s main attractions are a number of renovated mansions from the Qajar period in the 19th century. These traditional houses are hidden behind high mud-brick walls and not visible from the streets at all. They were the home of wealthy merchants and carpet dealers. Iran seems to spend a lot of money and effort to preserv...

Before I traveled to Abyaneh and Natanz , and then further to Esfahan , I visited, for a couple of days, Kashan, another 100 kilometers south of Qom . It is the first oasis along the old Qom-Kerman road, a small desert city at the border to the Great Desert. It has been home of ancient settlements since at least the 5th Millennium BC. Legend has it that the Three Wise Men, who were in fact Zoroastrian Magis, set out from here to follow a star announcing the birth of the New King of the Jews, the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. (But how did the bones arrive in Cologne’s Dome then?) Kashan is very famous for rose water which is made here from the beautiful flowers blooming at the fringes of Dasht-e Kavir. On the southern outskirts of the city an amazing ziggurat is located which might be older than those in Mesopotamia. It is what is now called Tappeh-ye Seyalk, a famous destination for archaeologists , and tourists, as well. It might well have been the starting point of any Persian civilizatio...