by Jill Worrall
‘Oh, god, I never eat that. Do you know how much cholesterol there is in it? I’ve already had liposuction once and I don’t want to have it done again.’
Reza almost chokes on his biscuit.
Hossein looks at our apple-flavoured non-alcoholic beer drinks.
‘Apple beer – in a country where the poetry is full of references to wine. It sums it up, really.’ He heads for the counter to buy tea.
‘Did you hear what he said? He’s had liposuction!’ Reza shakes his head.
In Kashan we say goodbye to Hossein. He and Reza thank each other for a stimulating discussion.
Kashan or, more accurately, Fin – a village that has almost been absorbed into the larger town’s sprawl – is the site of one of Iran’s most famous gardens, Bagh-e Tarikhi-ye Fin.
It’s our intention to visit this garden as well as the restored houses of Kashan, which for me epitomise more than perhaps any other place in Iran, other than Isfahan, the duality of Iran and the Persian soul.
We stay in a hotel a short walk from the garden. Reza loathes this particular hotel, but perseveres with it because of its location. Sandwiched between the beauty of Fin and the glories of Kashan’s traditional houses, one could realistically expect it to somehow reflect its surroundings. Instead it remains resolutely ordinary. It also has the most unreliable lift in all of Iran and consistently bad breakfasts.
But at least it helps highlight the allure of the Persian garden. For centuries Persians retreated to their gardens inside their high walls to escape the arid barrenness of the desert. Today they are also a haven from concrete mediocrity.
Our walk to the garden follows the channel of one of the spring-fed streams that bring life to Fin. The water gurgles and tumbles beside the road and is diverted through several teahouses, flowing over man-made waterfalls and around, even under, takts and tables making it suitable for only the most nimble of waiters. In the garden of one teahouse we spot a gleaming copper still. There’s an unmistakable whiff of roses in the air and Reza tells me that this particular teahouse also makes rose water and rose oil.
The Kashan area is famous not only for its houses and garden but for its intensely fragrant roses. The last time I was here the stallholders outside the garden entrance had on display huge plastic bags of bright pink rose petals and the perfume was intoxicating. I watched, intrigued, as men, including Reza and our driver at the time, bought bags of the petals.
‘We stir them into our yoghurt,’ Reza explained. Just what you would expect deep in the Axis of Evil.
It is too early this year for any roses to be on sale, but the stalls are selling bottles of oils and flagons of rose and mint water.
Fin’s garden was created for Shah Abbas the Great, who died in 1629 aged just 42, and was the most successful ruler of the Safavid dynasty as well as one of the greatest of all Persia’s kings. Under his command Isfahan became one of the world’s most beautiful cities.
All the defining elements of the classic Persian garden lie within Fin’s high walls; design features that, partly thanks to the transfer of ideas that took place along the silk roads and in the caravanserais of Persia, were also embraced by the great gardeners of Europe and the Moghul emperors of India.
The walls, in which a stately arched gateway is set, prevent anyone outside from getting even a hint of what lies within other than the gently waving tops of lofty cypress trees. Even from the gateway there is no direct view of the garden; one must pass through a corridor to the left or the right. Not only does this heighten a sense of intrigue, but in days gone by it ensured that if the gate was open, onlookers could not glimpse any unveiled ladies within.
Water is an essential element of a Persian garden and Fin has it in sparkling abundance. Springs fed from the distant hills continue to flow, even in the baking summers of the Iranian plateau.
Water channels, lined with turquoise tiles that accentuate the cooling presence of the water and heighten the contrast with the desert beyond the walls, divide the main garden into four. Aligned down the centre of each channel is a series of bubbling fountains. There are no mechanical pumps; the fountains and water flow are entirely gravity fed.
Over the years nearly 600 cypress trees have been planted in this garden, along with innumerable roses and citrus trees. At its heart is a beautiful arched pavilion, in the centre of which is a deep pool. Swirling spirals of water well up from the springs and shafts of sunlight strike the surface, making the ceiling of the pavilion swim and flicker with reflections.
Those visitors expecting a garden packed with blazing bedding plants and perennial borders tend to be disappointed with Fin. But to the Persian mind, a garden is a piece of paradise created on earth – even the word paradise comes from the ancient Persian word pairideeza or paradis, meaning a walled garden.
Although paradise is perhaps in the mind of the beholder, the necessities for a Persian paradise on earth comprise a lush haven from the desert where water is abundant and privacy and peace may be found. A garden should also appeal to all the senses. Nothing fills that role more completely than water in a Persian garden: you can taste its sweetness, inhale its freshness, feel its coolness, hear its gurgling, see its sparkle.
Interestingly, given the current regime, no amount of restriction will keep the passionate Iranian temperament completely suppressed. Like the springs of Kashan it bubbles up through poetry, music and art – and in the average or typical Iranian’s very nature.
Little sunlight can reach through the dark cypresses this early in spring but we sit on a bench beside the bubbling fountains where above us a bird starts to sing. Intensely melodic, its song seems to waver between happiness and despair leading me to ask Reza what we are listening to.
‘That’s a nightingale,’ he explains. ‘Have you never heard one before? But if you are going to hear one for the first time how perfect that it should be here.’
We catch a taxi into Kashan’s old quarter where high blank walls protect another of Iran’s hidden treasures – its restored 19thcentury traditional houses. They are probably the best examples left in the country, but sadly not too many of them remain. Today many rich Iranians prefer to build palatial villas with smoked glass windows, mock Roman pillars and terracotta tiles à la Spanish hacienda.
We enter the first house, Khan-e Abbasin, which used to belong to the Abbasin family, along a windowless corridor at street level that ends in a tiny round foyer from which several more corridors branch. Choosing one, Reza leads me until we step suddenly into the sunshine. I’m astonished to find I’m now on a narrow walkway one storey up above a rectangular courtyard. Below us is a long pool bordered by two gardens planted with citrus trees.
This excavation to create extra depth is a typical feature of these houses. The impact is extraordinary and immediately enforces the feeling of being in a private world.
This particular house is built around two such main courtyards and several smaller ones. It’s a mansion, really, designed for an extended family with its communal living spaces and rooms where individual families can find privacy as well as places for meeting visitors.
There are even summer quarters and winter rooms. Steps from the sunken courtyard lead to a spacious underground room where the entire household would sleep in the heat of the day. Wind towers on the roof provide natural air conditioning.
The winter quarters are in the upper storeys in rooms designed to catch warming sunlight, but at the same time preserve the occupants’ privacy. This is achieved by the extensive use of stained glass resulting in the whitewashed rooms being dappled with a kaleidoscope of primary colours lit by the sun.
Frescoes and glittering mirror work also adorn many of the rooms. I can’t imagine giving up living in one of these elegant and timeless houses, so perfectly in tune with their challenging environment, in favour of a sterile new apartment.
Late that afternoon we board the bus for Isfahan.
Across the aisle from us today is an elderly man sporting a
magnificent gauze eye patch on his way home after having had a cataract operation in Tehran. There’s also a young woman who needs our help filling out a visa application so she can emigrate to Canada.
‘Soon there will be no educated young people left in Iran,’ says Reza sadly. ‘They feel they will have more success and a better future overseas.’
Near the would-be emigrant is an old woman whose round wrinkled face is framed by a severe black chador. Her heavily made-up daughter sits beside her and spends most of the journey on her mobile phone.
Even the two elderly men in front of us have mobile phones. As we arrive on the outskirts of Isfahan they both take out their phones and call their families to come to collect them.
When we attempt to get our bags out of the baggage compartment under the bus we find a kayak paddle in the way. A young woman, apologising profusely, slides the paddle out along with a lifejacket, explaining to Reza as she does that she’s on her way home after a training camp with the Iranian National Women’s Kayaking Team.
‘You see,’ says Reza, as the girl disappears across the car park with her paddle, ‘modern-day caravans have as many interesting travellers in them as the old ones.’
We walk along Isfahan’s main street, Chahar Bagh. It’s still full of trees but during the 17th century when the boulevard was created it featured luxuriant gardens and pools. It was a key element in Shah Abbas’s grand design for his new capital city and linked the Royal Square or maidan with Isfahan’s Zayandeh River.
Shah Abbas relocated the seat of Persian power to Isfahan in 1587. Previously he’d ruled from two capitals, Tabriz and Qazvin, but decided these were too close for comfort to the aggressive Ottoman empire.
As we walk Reza makes me practise the Farsi saying that was coined during Isfahan’s brief but glorious time as the centre of the empire: ‘Isfahan nesf-e jahan’ or ‘Isfahan is half the world’.
The shops along both sides of the boulevard are doing plenty of business because No Ruz (New Day), Iran’s festival to welcome spring, and thus the new year, begins in a few weeks. The traditions of No Ruz predate Islam by thousands of years (the Zoroastrians celebrated each of the four seasons). Even after the Persians converted to Islam in the seventh century AD, No Ruz stayed as firmly embedded in their psyche as it is today. Periodic attempts since the Islamic revolution to phase out the much-loved festival are met with implacable resistance. It is a measure of the depth of Iranians’ feelings about No Ruz that the government has so far had to back down, something that does not happen very often.
No Ruz is a time for family and friends to get together, for parties, gifts and travel and is generally preceded by the intensive spring-cleaning of the population’s houses and gardens. The giving of presents explains why there are so many people out shopping in Isfahan this evening. It also explains why, on our way to Isfahan, I had seen so many carpets, big and small, hung over balconies, even from the highest of apartment buildings, and spread on footpaths to dry. How the women manage to clean some of these vast carpets and then haul them over the parapets I fail to understand.
What is not so obvious is the reason behind so many goldfish being offered for sale. The most important part of the two-week No Ruz celebration is the day on which the sun passes the Aries constellation. This is the spring equinox, which usually occurs between 20 and 22 March. Ready in every house for this moment will be the haft seen table, best described as a table set with a white cloth on which will be arranged seven objects symbolising the works of nature and man, each starting with the letter S in Farsi: sabzi (germinated seeds of wheat or lentils), sir (garlic), sib (apples), senjed (sweets), serke (vinegar), samanu (walnut halva) and sekeh (a gold coin). Along with these are a mirror, a Koran, some bread, a bowl of water with leaves floating it, hard-boiled eggs the shells of which have been dyed in various colours, salt, lighted candles, flowers (especially violets, hyacinths and narcissi) and a goldfish in a bowl.
Families gather around the haft seen table as the moment of the New Year arrives at which point everyone recites a special prayer for health, happiness and prosperity in the new year. The mother of the house is then supposed to eat one egg for each of her children and the partying and feasting begins.
I’ve always wanted a No Ruz goldfish, especially one of the highly ornate plastic fish bowls in which they come.
‘We’ll buy you one and take it back on the bus to Tehran and it will go on our haft seen table,’ Reza says. And this is why we end up walking through Isfahan’s most exclusive shopping street carrying a goldfish in a bowl.
Our hotel is serendipitously just across the road from Reza’s favourite Isfahan restaurant, Shahrzad. Abandoning our bags and the goldfish we climb the stairs to its dazzling dining room where the maître d’ greets Reza like an old friend. Shahrzad’s walls are covered with mosaic mirrorwork, mirrored panels and paintings and the windows overlooking the street are framed with diamonds of stained-glass work. It’s a perfect setting for eating one of my favourite Iranian dishes, fesenjan, made with meat or poultry cooked with spices, chopped walnuts, eggplant and pomegranate juice. It has that delicious sweet-savoury taste so characteristic of Persian cooking.
Meals at Shahrzad always end with a piece of gaz, Isfahan’s specialty sweet – chewy nougat studded with pistachios. We leave the restaurant, munching our gaz, on our way to see the river.
Shah Abbas incorporated the River Zayandeh into his urban planning, commissioning bridges and parks along its banks. Although there are now many more bridges across the river several of the original 17th-century structures remain and it is to Si-o-Se, the bridge of 33 arches, that we are now heading. There are plenty of people around because no matter what the season, Isfahan’s historic bridges and its riverside parks are immensely popular with Iranians, day and night.
The paving stones of Si-o-Se have been worn smooth by centuries of use, and today the bridge is restricted to pedestrians. On each side of the gently curved bridge are its eponymous 33 arches. Narrow ledges, along which it’s possible to walk high above the water of the Zayandeh, are on the outside but one needs to duck every metre or so to avoid the supporting side arches. These alcoves are popular trysting places, especially where the floodlights are not working.
After promenading across the bridge we return to the north bank and down the wide steps to the teahouse beneath. Although there are a few seats under cover, most of the teahouse tables are outside on the foot of the bridge abutment where the river foams and gushes just centimetres below our feet.
The metal chairs and tables are rickety and scratched but the setting is incomparable. The bridge, bathed in deep orange light, its arches cast in alternating light and dark shadow, rises up behind us. Downstream a tall plume of water, its spray also illuminated with coloured lights, shoots high into the Persian night competing for attention with a full moon. We sit with glasses of tea and a qalyan of apple tobacco and recall how, one year earlier in this very spot, we first discussed the idea of the book.
‘I’m not sure exactly how many of Shah Abbas’s nine hundred and ninety-nine caravanserais are left, but I think maybe we have visited or at least seen about a hundred of them,’ Reza calculates.
‘There are still a few left for another time.’
Next morning we discover that our budget hotel does not serve breakfast, but as always Reza has a plan.
‘You have yet to try Isfahan’s porridge,’ he tells me as we walk through the streets on a morning that feels like spring. We turn into a small shop, where disconcertingly for me, the window is piled high with extremely fatty meat.
Reza orders the porridge. Made from wheat and flavoured with rosewater, his portion arrives in a giant bowl, while mine comes in a middle-sized one – I’m expecting the three bears any minute. The porridge is extremely runny and, unfortunately, it becomes the first dish I’ve been offered in Iran that I cannot eat. While Reza vacuums up his, I’m gagging on mine, albeit as surreptitiously as I can, because I don’t want to hurt h
is feelings. I’m not sure if its the consistency or the fact that I’m facing a refrigerated display case full of what appears to be raw tripe.
Beside us the restaurant staff are setting out their own breakfast of bread, fresh soft cheese and bunches of fresh herbs. Up to this point the most junior of them has been washing the floor, but his boss stops him and apologises to us, saying that as we are guests they will finish cleaning later.
Reza suddenly notices that I’m not eating.
‘You don’t like it?’ he asks, clearly aghast.
I tell him I have always had a bit of a problem with porridge, eventually persuading him it’s not a disaster and that as I’m not very hungry he may as well eat my portion. ‘It’s like a Persian version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears,’ I tell him after he’s finished and we’re once again on the move, this time on our way to Isfahan’s grandest hotel, which is also the most spectacularly restored of all Shah Abbas’s 999 caravanserai. During the short walk, Reza keeps checking me for signs of imminent collapse. In the end I cave in under his concern and let him buy me a bread roll.
It’s been a long time since any camel was near the central courtyard, the jewel in the crown of the Abassi hotel. Small pools with fountains grace each of the four gardens, jets of water form a shimmering arch over a single long channel of water and rainbows flicker in the droplets. The flowerbeds are planted with roses as well as pink, white and mauve night-flowering stock. In the evenings the perfume is almost overwhelming; even in the daytime the air is heady with scent.
Two storeys of arched doorways surround the courtyard. Once they would have led to lodgings for the caravan travellers. Today, however, Iranian honeymooners and a few foreign tourists lean out the windows.
Although the bedrooms in the Abassi are rather ordinary, no expense has been spared in the public areas such as the lobby with its mirrored mosaic ceiling and the grand dining room where every centimetre of wall space is covered in paintings illuminated by enormous chandeliers. We try to imagine what a dusty, sweaty caravan leader would make of it, but any ghosts have fled long ago.