Axis of evil

[Jäeger]

I think your photos are nice. You also gave me an idea that mirror mosaics would be fucking tits in my house.

[rickshaw92]

How much of a pain in the ass was it to get a visa? Flight cost from London?

[Penta]

How much of a pain in the ass was it to get a visa?

A big one. Took about 3 months, plus visa fee and extra payment to visa agency for "express" service. One of the party baulked at this last and only got her visa after huge hassle the day before we left, having started in November. And 3 were finger-printed on arrival: the American (of course, but not his wife), the Photographer and his wife, the Doctor. I have no idea why we were excused.

Flight cost from London?

Had to buy an all-in tour in advance (except food and drink). I don't remember how much. I'd have to ask Mr P: he wrote the cheques. But it was v. expensive (2 or 3 times the cost of the similar thing we did in Syria a few years ago).

They may start loosening up again in the next year or so, now Obama's opened up space for dialogue. And as a Canadian you wouldn't be subject to so many restrictions.

[rickshaw92]

A few years back a Canadian jurno of Iranian background was detained, raped and killed. The Canadian government tried to get to the bottom of it and was punked off by the Iranian government. As a result Canadians have a hard time getting in. Thanks for the info though. Guided tour? Oh well, better than nothing eh, glad you had a nice time.

[Penta]

Guided tour?

I know. I did preface with a disclaimer right at the top of the other thread on the travel forum. But beggars can't be choosers.


Shah Abbas's Ali Qapu Palace (built at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries):





He had scouts search out beautiful girls all across his empire to bring him (but not Persian girls, who couldn't be so demeaned). The one on the right here was a good 'un, but there was a bit of a fat lump opposite.


Balcony pillars made from cedars brought from Lebanon:

[Woodsman]

By far the best man made aesthetics I've ever seen in photography (It's drab here comparatively). Thanks for sharing your photos, Penta!

[Penta]

It's always a pleasure to share one's enthusiasms, Woodsman. (You can understand, perhaps, why I freak out at the very possibility of anyone deciding to bomb the place. We saw the damage from a stray Iraqi missile in the Masjed-e Jame'. They could do without any more "mistakes".)


From his balcony, Shah Abbas could look out (as could we) on what I think is the most beautiful square in the world, the Maidan-e Shah, now renamed, inevitably, the Maidan-e Imam Khomeini.

To the right, the Masjed-e Shah/Imam:



Opposite, my favourite, Shah Abbas and his family's own private mosque (so no need for minarets or calls to prayer), the Masjed-e Sheikh Lotfollah:



As the square itself was built straight north/south, they had to make some adjustments behind the facades, so the mosques themselves were aligned towards Mecca.

Inexplicably, we haven't got any photos of the caravanserai to the left. And here's the Ali Qapu from across the square. It doesn't show well in this photo (not good, but the only one that doesn't show some of us too clearly), but the fuckers have even defaced this with pictures (much smaller than usual, admittedly) of Khomeini and Khamenei:



Bazaar all the way round, and off for miles behind the far right-hand corner (to the left of the first picture).

I'll give it a rest for now. More later or tomorrow.

[Penta]

Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque: a perfect jewel of the period.

Main entrance:



The passage to get the Mecca angle right:



The mehrab:





From 4 sides to 8:






All of our attempts to capture the inside of the dome (my favourite anywhere) were blurred. This is the best I can offer:

[Penta]

Here's the big one: Masjed-e Shah, or as we are supposed to get used to calling it, Masjed-e Imam.

Entrance:


Main eivan:


Another eivan. Lots of retained symbols of Mithras in the decorations of all the mosques we saw; here the second panel from the top on each side, the swastika-like symbol, a representation of the rotating sun, is very clear:


The real sun comes out at last:


Carpets stored for when it's still used for prayer:

[coldharvest]

All these pictures will be very helpful when those buildings need to be reconstructed after the American bombing begins.

[Penta]

Bah, humbug! I tried not to even think about the possibility when I was there (though the Iraqi missile damage I mentioned above ruined that approach).

Like to see them try. In fact, a lot of the delicate work on the Safavid buildings was done by Armenian Christians, who were the best at the time. Shah Abbas moved (forcibly, I think) a whole community of craftsmen, artists and traders from Jolfa in the north-west of modern Iran to Esfahan, where they were given land on the south bank of the river, the Zayande-rud, to build a new town, New Jolfa. I'll post a few pictures later on (it was the next morning in our packed schedule).

[Penta]

One I forgot to include in the last post:



The Madrasa in the same complex. As a khariji, an infidel and worst of all a woman, I was never able to get into this part back in the Shah's secular state. Funny how the Islamic Republic has opened almost everywhere up to foreigners. It's through here:



The Silver Lady, the American and the Guide, in a rare moment when they're not being asked for photos:



Storage:



The garden:



A really lovely, peaceful spot now (I don't suppose it was so quiet when it was full of eager students rocking back and forth as they learned to recite the Qu'ran by heart). It came close to replacing the Sheikh Lotfollah at the top of my list of favourite places.

[Penta]

All that was before lunch. To the bazaar at last. Restaurant. When I slipped out the back for a cigarette after lunch, a man I reckoned was one of our assigned watchers made a bit of a hash of strolling aimlessly round the corner: it was a dead-ended alley with nothing much for him to pretend to be looking at.


A standard spice and herb shop:


Esfahan's bazaar stretches for miles. I spent much of my spare time there all those years ago, chatting to carpet-dealers, enamellers, brass bashers and the rest (there were still hundreds of workshops then). It's where I learned most of my colloquial Farsi, and discovered that a revolution was brewing (something the embassies missed, presumably because they were too busy talking to generals, ministers and other diplomats rather than the people who matter - and know what's going on). We were horribly pushed for time (the bazaar would be closed the next day along with everything else) and I wanted to get down to some serious shopping with a bit of superficial bargaining for pleasure - no time to play the game properly, sadly. (Given the choice, I'll take the joys of ritual haggling in a bazaar, even if I'm bound to overpay, in those circumstances at least, over fixed prices in a shopping mall any time.)

One scene to remember from this occasion: discussions with the prosperous, paunchy shopkeeper were developing nicely along the lines of - him: Lady! Please. I can ask more than this when I sell in bulk to the other shopkeepers. Me: I have spent a small fortune to get to this very shop so I can buy some of your exquisite goods, sir; would you make me leave empty handed? Him: I am but a poor man, lady, how will I feed my children? - when his fashionably dressed grown-up son, big hair and all, burst out laughing, ruining pa's spiel. So cross was he that he started throwing things across the shop at his son. Mayhem, as the brothers joined in the ribaldry. But not for long: there was business to be done. Dad's professional smile was soon back in place and the deal was done amicably, to everyone's satisfaction.

And then we were off again, to the only other remaining Safavid palace (subsequent dynasties destroyed the rest), the Chehel Sotun. It means forty columns; there are actually 20, usually doubled by their reflection in the pool, but not really for us in such shitty weather:



More mirrors for Jäeger and Stiv:


Another pretty ceiling:


And the only picture we got of the extraordinary wall paintings that wasn't horribly blurred in the poor light. I forget who it portrays (the best was the one of Shah Abbas of which you can see a detail on his Wiki page, or the front of the current British Museum exhibition page), but I think it's Abbas II receiving the Turkmen or Uzbeks. Nice plaits on the dancing girls:

[Ultra Swain]

Brilliant stuff P.

[Penta]

Last one tonight.

Next day, sunshine came softly ...

Jolfa, the Armenian quarter. And more enlightenment: statue of Bishop Khachator, who either brought to Esfahan from Europe its first printing press or had a copy made of Gutenberg's, I'm not quite sure, in the first part of the 17th century:



The Vank, the Armenian Cathedral, now decommissioned and a national monument like the mosques (there are loads more functioning churches in Jolfa):



Inside, it's full of gory images of martyrs. I never much liked it. At one time I was thinking of doing my short BA dissertation on Armenians in Jolfa, and the man I talked to a few times for advice always insisted in meeting in the Vank. The pictures freaked me out, so what with that and the fact that I couldn't get access to enough information, I eventually gave up that idea. It would be easy now (quite apart from internet resources) as they've got a rather fine museum; lots of interesting things, as well as a moving display on the Ottoman genocide. In their china cabinet, along with some Chinese porcelain and the Iranian copies beginning under the Safavids (I'm not sure if the Armenians were potters as well as everything else), they have a selection of Wedgwood and other English china, which seemed rather out of place.

Anyway, the inside's not all vile pictures of torture and death:



Among other things, when I was there, the Armenians used to make very palatable wine. No more, I imagine.