The twelve-pump state-owned filling station in Tehran’s Velenjak suburb had never seen a queue like this. Though constantly and doggedly jammed with an irreconcilable jumble of aging Paykan taxis, family-owned Kia Prides and sleek German status-mobiles, there is never more than a 20-minute wait.
But here in Naghadeh, West Azerbaijan, it was nearly a kilometre before any indication of the petrol station could be seen above the roofs of the jeeps and pickups that filed motionless down the dusty highway. There was, however, no sign of unrest. The drivers, resigned to spending the day here, either slept or chatted and shared tea and melons in the shade.
The complete absence of regular city cars at this local filling station told the whole story. Naghadeh, situated southwest of salt-infused Lake Urumieh, is a prime filling point for gasoline smugglers. The nearby border with Iraq has become porous since US forces handed control over to Iraq's own forces four months ago. All of these sturdy, hard-working vehicles will take their full tanks west into Iraq and then finally to Turkey where petrol prices are ten to fifteen times more expensive than at Iranian pumps.
No greater irony can exist in oil-rich Iran than a shortage of petrol. Iran consumes 70 million litres of petrol per day while its refineries produce only 40 million – making Iran a net importer of petrol despite having the world’s third largest oil reserves.
The causes are well-known and endemic. Government subsidies keep pump prices down to as low as 800 Rials ($0.09) per litre which encourages wasteful consumption and provides an incentive for smugglers.
Government plans to curb this problem through rationing have been shelved due to the absence of a framework to track consumption and the general public’s heavy over-reliance on private cars and taxis. Indeed it is hard to imagine car-clogged Tehran taking rationing or a hike in petrol prices lying down.
Shortages, intolerable waits and empty pumps have motivated Naghadeh residents to pre-empt the national government in taking action. They have forced local lawmakers to accept a rationing system of their own design. Computer systems which track the registration numbers of vehicles coming to local pumps have been supplied and programmed entirely at the expense of private citizens. Motorists are now limited to one full tank every three days. Since most smugglers try to make one trip per day, this measure is set to cut queues significantly.
Nevertheless, this local measure is unlikely to be a precursor to any national efforts. While oil revenues continue to be buoyed by soaring prices, Iran will not be forced to take any painful measures to ease its dependence on imported petrol. For the meantime at least, it can afford to feed its unhealthy addiction by providing the rest of the world with the raw materials to feed their own.
The pro-Hezbollah propaganda machine goes into overdrive in Tehran.
Hassan Nasrallah pictured in the rear windscreen of a Pride hatchback.
Summer turns Tehran into a white hot pit. And in much the same way as one places rocks around a fire, the mountains around the city seem to focus all the heat into the centre. Thankfully, they also provide sun-stricken city-dwellers with paths up to cooler climes. Deprived of altogether less wholesome entertainments, one of Tehran’s most popular weekend activities for all ages is “kuh raftan” – going to the mountains.
There are three main paths into the mountains in the north of the city where Tehranis flock at weekends.
I used to go here a lot. It’s an easy walk from where I live and – smog allowing – you get amazing views of the city but that’s about all it’s got going for it as far as I’m concerned. In winter, skiers and snowboarders from Tehran’s wealthier communities drive up the broad path to the first station where they take the telecabin (cable car) to the high peaks. In summer though, the shadeless, dusty, flat track is hardly inviting during the daytime and who wants to go mountain climbing at night? Plenty of Iranians seem to, however, many stopping at the broad asphalt plateau at the first station to drink tea out of plastic cups and some at the surreally located paintball range which seems to have landed from another planet on the otherwise bare slope.
I’ve only been here once – and even then I didn’t go far up. From what I saw, this is easily the most commercially developed of the three. The narrow path that follows the cascading river is flanked on both sides with unbroken ranks of restaurants and coffee-houses, mostly quite large, with countless carpeted daises. Multicoloured fluorescent tubes and globes light up the white stucco crenellations of these establishments make the whole place look like a mountain-themed amusement park. Good place for a first date.
By far the most appealing to nature lovers and the closest you’ll get to a genuine hike without leaving the city. The path starts in the narrow streets of an aged suburb shaded by tall plane trees and cut in two by a gushing stream that accompanies the walking path all the way up to near the peak. Unlike Tochal, the path never gets wide enough to allow more than four people to walk abreast and, for a city defined by indecorous driving, it’s refreshing to find that Tehranis are perfectly civil when faced with heavy pedestrian traffic.
Pretty soon after leaving the last of the suburban residences behind, you can see families and groups of friends picnicking in shady spots by the wayside. Groups of schoolgirls maqne’eh tight, huddled around a secret. Lads lying out, using each other as pillows and passing the gheliyun. Some stop at the teahouses which stud the path until about two hours in, where old plane and walnut trees give their shade generously and you can order tea, dates and adasi (lentil soup).
The path is rocky and challenging enough in places to make the unaccustomed huff and puff. But that doesn’t deter a handful of specialist traders from making up a scattered, eclectic bazaar on the earlier sections of the mountain path. For instance, the dervish who sells organic cotton garments and imported Indian throws from his cliff perch, and the bookseller with his modern Persian classics and translations of Western philosophers. They and the kamancheh player who busks for change in front of the bookshop add their spiritual spice to the sunglasses and hat sellers and snack vendors.
Having passed the stalls selling plump black cherries and pulpy mulberries we now see the orchards from which they came, the parasitic city now left far behind. Energetic teenagers try their height, jumping up at the branches which hang over the wire fence, their upper reaches still fully laden but the ground now covered with the stains of fallen fruit. We are now in productive lands. The crowds thin out slowly as you get higher but Iranians are quite prepared to carry full picnic sets including rugs, kettles, portable barbecues and gheliyuns in their tight-packed rucksacks quite a way up the mountain path. Once they’ve found the perfect spot by the riverbank, they may take the opportunity to pick the pungent wild herbs that grow there, cool their feet in the icy water or just savour the freshness of the air and the sound of the water, perhaps forgetting, just for a moment, exactly which city it is they’re from.
"You can't force people to believe that, simply because the representative of God has died, the man now sitting in his chair is the new representative of God."
"To us, a carpet is a vital necessity. You spread a carpet on a wretched, parched desert, lie down on it, and feel like you are lying in a green meadow."
--a carpet seller in Ryszard Kapuściński's "Shah of Shahs"
By Ryszard Kapuściński
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, embarks on an ill-considered push towards modernization, fuelled by oil wealth and driven by a greed for admiration. Kapuściński recalls photographs, using them as cross-sections of history’s great worm through time. Here, Reza Pahlavi, the Shah father, is pictured with his young son. They wear identical uniforms. The symbolism is powerful and entirely intended.
Iran too has its own psyche and hang-ups. The unconscious rural poor are irreconcilable with the Pahlavi ego, keen to strive forward. And the rebellious streak in Shiism means that Iranians are never sad to see their Shahs’ heads fall. One of the most delightful moments in this book is when the author conjures up the first Shiites’ teaching Iranians that “you can be a Muslim without being an establishment Muslim… you can be an opposition Muslim! And that makes you an even better Muslim!” “Shiism”, he later defines is “a form of national survival” but he does not face head-on the brooding spectre of Ayatollah Khomeini in his reckonings. The rise of the Islamic Republic only proves that “it is not always the best of men who emerge from hiding.”
In one of the longest sections of the book, Kapuściński turns novelist and tells of the first tentative words of opposition in the fashion of a Dostoevsky, but instead of a murderer as a subject/protagonist, he follows a returned émigré intellectual who witnesses the beginnings of unrest but remains in denial, running in fear from SAVAK. Then from the novel to the theatre. Kapuściński goes on to portray the Shah as an incompetent director using vast amounts of “imported scenery” for his play, “The Great Civilisation” – an absurdist piece in which, against his wishes, the extras tear down the stage at the end.
A veteran of political unrest (by his own count, Iran was his 27th revolution) journalist Ryszard Kapuściński leads us on an impressionistic journey through the roots in history and psychology of the players right up to the tipping point “when the policeman shouts but the man doesn’t run.” His observations weave the mundane with the profound to achieve drama, involvement and even comedy. Clearly appreciating the Python-esque surrealism, he includes, from an Iranian newspaper, an interview with a professional “wrecker of the Shah’s monuments” who unwittingly tells the story of the last Pahlavi monarch through that of his own travails with rope and hook.
“––Does that mean you would pull down, he would set up, then you would pull down what he set up, and it kept going like this?
––That’s right. Many times we nearly threw in the towel. If we pulled one down, he set up three.”
Will Yong
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One of the best places in Tehran for a “traditional” Iranian dining experience.
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| Azari teahouse |
Sweet, hospitable smells of flavoured tobacco waft through its beautifully-restored patterned brick façade. The atmosphere is everything at this superbly executed establishment and a warm greeting from the staff tells you that considerate service has also been brought into the mix – an important factor in a place so ideal for foreign visitors.
Pass the local men filling the brightly-lit café-style antechamber with scented smoke and then through to the courtyard. The high, peaked canvas roof, propped up by its sturdy pole rather gives the impression of a luxurious tent. The central pool and creeping plants further add to the outdoor feel.
Guests either doff shoes and sit on a carpeted dais or huddle around tables. Little fluted glasses of tea are set on saucers with a satisfying clunk almost as soon as you are seated. Closely following are plates of succulent dates and soft, freshly-baked cookies. The food, though limited to a choice of fried freshwater fish, chicken kabāb or ābgusht, is of a high standard. The waiters, in traditional dress, are very polite and will serve and set to work mashing your abgusht with a flourish.
Though there was a time that even traditional forms of music were considered “haram” (i.e. against God’s will) and banned in the Islamic Republic of Iran, now things are considerably more relaxed. One night’s entertainment at the Azari consists of 3 different musical acts.
On the night we visited we were greeted by the well-intentioned chanting of a folk singer accompanying himself with a hand drum. His style of singing is still employed in the training centres of the Pahlavan, Iran’s traditional wresters and body-builders.
He was followed by an ensemble of kamancheh, santour, daf and vocalist performing traditional songs quite professionally, if not very enthusiastically. The final duo, however, made up for any deficit. The poker-faced deadpan of the santour player could not prepare us for the lightning speed and bravado of his playing and the singer/daf-player gave it all he had.
It would be hard to find a better combination of traditional setting, cuisine and music than at the Azari, anywhere in Tehran.
Location: Southern end of Vali-e Asr Avenue near the central Railway Station.
Tel: 021 55373665
On the west side the very lovely Laleh Park is a low-lying dun-brick building functioning as Tehran’s most important museum of contemporary art.
In the construction itself you see something of the struggle in all Iranian art to reconcile the traditional with the modern. First notice the skylights raised from the roof. Reminiscent of the “badgirs” of Yazd or Kashan, these allow the harsh sun to softly light the central sunken well of inner space – itself a modern interpretation of the cool underground havens of desert city residences.
Labyrinthine corridors spin off the central hall and guide you through the history of modern Iranian art. There are many fine pieces and some deep, absurdly comfortable armchairs from which to view them from.
Here are some of the pictures I took before I was caught on one of their countless security cameras.
This is one of the museum’s most impressive calligraphic works. Swathes of tightly packed Arabic script radiates out from an unfathomable centre. A profound message of divine unity. I will have to make another trip to note the name of the artist.
Another by the same artist.
And this is just gorgeous.
By Steve Kinzer
Iran's recent development of uranium enrichment facilities has been referred to in the official national media as an event even more significant than the nationalisation of the oil industry in 1951. But while borrowing the historical imagery of Iran's first great victory against imperialism, nothing is said by the country's leaders of the man who led the charge, Mohammad Mossadeq.
"All The Shah's Men" is a pulsating account of the rise of this champion of Iranian nationalism, his nationalisation of the oil industry and his subsequent downfall at the hands of the CIA in 1953 that shows just how big a part US foreign policy played in the creation of a "rogue state". This book is essential reading for understanding the combination of reverence and injustice that many Iranians still feel having been robbed of their great nationalist hero, and why Iran's current regime now has no place for him in their own national mythology.
Kinzer paints a sympathetic picture of this man who coughed blood seemingly as a direct consequence of the injustices that the British were being allowed to perpetrate in his country through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and later still, British Petroleum). For a people raised on the idea of personal martyrdom, the fainting fits, coughing blood and involuntary tears of this highly emotional character all added to his popular appeal.
Since oil had been discovered in Iran by British engineers in 1908, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and later still, British Petroleum), had become one of the key elements of the Empire. Safeguarding oil supplies ran parallel with protecting the entire imperial ideology whose foundations in monopolising the riches of other countries had already begun to look tenuous. Thus, to arch-imperialists such as Churchill and Eden, Mossadeq was a man who might have brought down an empire.
Across the Atlantic, two radically different ideologies were doing battle over how best to approach the threat of Communism. While Truman had thought it best to ride the wave of nationalist movements and help them to stand independently against the red tide, the incoming Eisenhower administration preferred a more "hands-on" approach. The British knew that the fear of Communism could drive the incoming president to extreme action and it was their encouragement that paved the way for the birth of the regime change rationale that was to characterise much of US foreign policy in the decades that followed.
Complete with its swashbuckling anti-hero, CIA agent, Kermit Roosevelt, at the helm of anti-Mossadeq operations on the ground, Kinzer's book reads more like a spy thriller with political punch than it does a straightforward history. And it is indeed the good-natured ease with which he approached his job that highlights just how callous an approach to world politics his masters in Washington were taking. Covert action seemed, at the time, to be a satisfyingly direct and cost-effective device to ensure a more favourable regional situation, it is clear that with the Islamic world currently rising up in anger against US heavy-handedness, the real price of the coup is clearly still being paid.
Following the story of this national hero to its conclusion in the Mossadeq family estate where he spent his final years under house arrest, Kinzer gives touching accounts of the quiet memories that still echo around the village to which he was kind patron and generous benefactor. There is no escaping the question of what might have been if he had been allowed to lead the whole of Iran. What could have been if the British hadn't been so intransigent, if the Truman doctrine had not given way to Eisenhower. If a national hero had been allowed to rule the country that had wanted him, that needed him and who had elected him.
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The National Museum of Iran is an archaeological and history museum in central Tehran and preserves some of the world's most valuable Persian antiquities.
The collection is a must-see on any visit to Tehran. The museum opened in 1937 and the building housing the pre-Islamic period collection was designed by French architect Andre Godard and is modeled on a Sassanian palace.
The National Museum of Iran is actually made up of two separate buildings: Godard's building contains pre-Islamic period exhibits, the second building next door (opened in 1996) consists of the post-Islamic collection - Islamic period art, books, calligraphy, carpets, ceramics, miniatures and textiles from over 1000 years of the Muslim history of Iran.
The collection of ancient Persian art contains pieces from Shush, Persepolis, Ismail Abad, Rey and Turang Tappeh.
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| National Museum of Iran, Tehran © Camille-Hélène Lemouchoux |
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| National Museum of Iran, Tehran © Camille-Hélène Lemouchoux |
Details
National Museum of Iran
Open 9 am-1 pm; 2 pm-4 pm
Closed Tuesday
14-16 672061-6 Emam Khomeini Avenue,
Si-e-Tir corner, Tehran
Tel: 620 2061
www.nationalmuseumofiran.ir
Iranian Embassy in the United Kingdom
16 Prince's Gate
London SW7 1PT
The nearest underground station to the embassy which overlooks Hyde Park is Knightsbridge on the Piccadilly Line.
Iran is the world's fourth-largest producer of crude oil. In 2002 Iran produced approximately 3.72 million barrels per day (Mbbl/d). It is estimated that Iran has the second-largest reserves of untapped petroleum in the world, (125.8 billion barrels) second only behind Saudi Arabia (260 billion barrels). Iranian reserves amount to one-tenth of the world's estimated total supply. Iran also has estimated reserves of 940 trillion cubic feet of gas about 16% of total world reserves.
Petroleum production has been the main industry in Iran since the 1920s. The oil industry was nationalized in 1951 with the then government forming the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Petrochemical exports now generate about US$1 billion dollars a year with major trading partners being China, India and Japan. In 2003, the vast majority (about 90%) of oil exported from the Persian Gulf was carried by tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.
In 2003, Iran announced the discovery of the world's second largest oilfield near the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr with an estimated reserve of 38 billion barrels.
Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum by Michael T Klare
