In both September 2011 and 2013 I went to Yazd, the city in the desert, located on the Silk Road, and home and refuge of what are probably some of the last remnants of Zoroastrianism, though this old religion is closer to the heart of many an Iranian than meets the eye. Ask them and you will find out...Iranians were forced by Arab invaders to give up this faith and convert to Islam, and now Islam is even official in the Islamic republic Iran has become after the revolution .
The Shah forbid the Zoroastrians from performing Zoroastrian burial rites, saying they had to change this in order to become a modern country, and he also forced the muslim women to remove their hijab. Ayatollah Khomeini forced the Iranian women to put the hijab back on, give up their mini skirts and wear a tchador over their clothes in the street. Somehow, what women wear seems terribly important in being closer to God or closer to modern times, or so some politicans and clerics would have us believe. I personally am convinced that God (or whoever is out there watching over me) does not give a damn what I wear. Yet, I comply with the Iranian laws and dutifully dress up in long tunics, and drape a scarf around my hair, and I also think, it looks quite pretty and also provides some protection from the intense sunshine.
Yet, also to me, the foreign visitor, Yazd and it's surroundings is the closest to my heart, and Zoroastrianism feels like something I could believe in and get used to, and I also am sure, our old Germanic religion carries certain elements from it.
One more reason, apart from my fascination with the fire temple and Chakchak, the Zoroastrian sacred sanctuary in the desert, that I keep returning to Yazd is the Silk Road Hotel .
A place looking almost like a caravanserai and with the atmosphere of one, hidden among the clay and chalk walls of the old city, behind the bazaar. Here is where all the mad people gather who feel restless at home and find peace by doing crazy things like riding a bicycle from China to Europe, choose practically unknown countries like Kyrgizistan for a vacation, the Chinese girl who wants to go to Armenia because this is one of the few places she can get a visa for, the young man from Georgia (Russian Georgia) who arrived here by hitchhiking through Kurdistan, the couple who are both environmental engineers who are asking whether the road through Yuksekova or Dogubeyazit is flatter to ride their bicycles into Turkey, the Australian who has been to countries I have never even heard of and humbles me with his travel tales, the Italian who is writing his doctorate about water politics and wants to see the channels by which water is transported from Esfahan to Yazd....and me, who always seems to get the same single room in the left back corner of the second courtyard....
In the middle of the Silk Road Hotel there is a leafy courtyard with a blue fountain pool and flowers and Green . There is a raised platform with benches, tables, kilim cushions and Arabic paintings on the wall. There is a menu with delicious food that offers plenty of choices other than the eternal kebab, and also Indian curries and homemade pomegranate and watermelon juice. When there is nothing to do one can hang out here in the reasonably cool shade all day,enjoying the wifi, having conversation with the most unusual world ttravellers you will ever find, exchange experiences, advise and get advice where to go and what to do next...And then there are the tours...camel tours into the desert to watch the sunset, early morning tours to drive to Chakchak, Kasavargh the abandoned desert village, Maybod and it's museums and monuments made from adobe...I never tire of Yazd, this is one place in Iran that makes me feel at home away from home...
and then there was the walk through the old city I took one afternoon, exploring the old allys between the adobe houses, the arcades near the bazaar, trying to find Alexander's prison and Rukneddin's tomb and wondering whether I should wake up Yazdis from their slumber in the heat so I could climb on top of their roof and enjoy the view, as the sign on their shop offered...
And then there is the fire temple, Atesh kadeh in Farsi, and Silent towers, the funeral hills outside the city that belonged to the Zoroastrian faith. I went out here one night and as I walked back I looked up into the sky and saw a meteor, a falling star floating in a great arch through the sky and exploding into shining pieces...
Great photos.
ReplyDeleteThank you
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