The Bazaar and our Neighbourhood

By now it was 2:30 and we were going to look at the Golestan Palace museum, but we were told by the hotel manager that Pakistan President Yahya Khan was staying there. So that was that. We walked up Ferdowsi to find the tobacco supermarket closed, so headed for the bazaar. A sign in the PTT communications square misdirected us to the bazaar; nevertheless, with an unerring sense of direction we found the bazaar by the great circle route. First there were shoes, thousands of shoes, then cloth, then carpets. Nowhere can so many people be earning so little money selling so many carpets to so few! Eventually, after two or three days journey, we came out into the sunshine. The roof over the bazaar was like an old British Railways mainline terminus.

Not only was there pedestrian traffic, but also bicycles, mopeds, three-wheelers and even a horse and cart! With Tehran being on a continuous downward slope from north to south it's quite hard work for horses. One of the bicycles was absolutely laden. Amazing. And everywhere there are porters with sloping back frames, often carrying unbelievable loads. We retraced our steps till we found another suitable alley and so we wandered among the iron mongers, leather shops, book shops, grocers, stationers and countless others. Sometimes being hailed, in English, by small boys and grown men. But, on the whole, not as often being molested and beckoned to as in Turkey. Suddenly, after walking for ages, we were back on Bouzarjomehri Avenue.

(Finding places we visited in 1969 on Google Maps can be fraught with difficulty. For example, I believe that Bouzarjomehri Avenue is now called "15 Khordard Street". General Karim Bouzarjomehri was Mayor of Tehran in the 1930s and supervised the destruction of the city wall during Reza Shah's modernisation program. "15 Khordard Street" stands for 5th June 1963 which is the starting point of the Islamic Revolution which culminated in 1979.)

Happily, I recognized where we were. The traffic was sensational, it was now perhaps 4:30. At the end of Avenue Bouz there was a complete jam on the crossroads as well as in the gutter. The police were as ineffectual as ever, and a civilian in a brown suit had set himself up as an impromptu policeman to help the two who were there already. There was a superb old American motorbike with sidecar which had a horizontally opposed twin. It was painted army green, and with a "swinging" front suspension.

Walking up from Ave Bouz to Amir Kabir Ave there were many small engineering shops, and one or two woodworking places with lathes. The most amazing was one with a hand operated turning device, the chisel being held with the other hand and a foot. There were one or two second hand musical instrument shops which looked exceedingly decrepit. What an interesting street. We watched a character turning pieces of wood that looked like giant fancy chess men. Amir Kabir is a street full of shops which are "boiled down" scrap yards selling pieces of old cars. And there are the tyre shops.

So, clutching a loaf and some dates we got back "home" and had a cup of tea in the lounge. Heinz still wasn't back so we couldn't reclaim our stove. Instead we went out for our evening meal. We thought of having soup as "starters", but when it arrived it had about half a chicken in it and was plainly a meal in itself. Altogether, with a bowl of rice it was 89R. Brian had rice with his, so I had the bread.

Happily, Heinz was back when we returned so we could have coffee, for which he joined us, again. Tomorrow we must rise early, it's already 11:40pm. The weather was beautiful, bright and clear, sunny but rather cold. Snow is forecast. The mountains make a beautiful backcloth, covered in snow, with the sun shining on them. And the soft warm glow of sunset highlights the natural colour of the rock. I felt moved to write "An Ode to Tehran".