Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran Read Online Free
Author: Elaine Sciolino
Tags: Political History
driving test, but if you say you’re illiterate you only have to identify a few signs to get your license.
“Traffic,” he concluded, “is worse than life.”
“So you hate your job?” I asked him.
“I love my job!” he exclaimed, to my surprise. “It energizes me. On the road, I can get away with things.”
The streets of Tehran are so clogged with cars—most of which are more than fifteen years old and lack exhaust filters—that Tehran has become one of the most polluted cities in the world, alongside Mexico City, Bangkok, and Jakarta. Tehran’s location at the foot of the Alborz mountain range limits the free circulation of air. Radio and television announcements warn children and old people to stay home, schools can shut down for days, and it is not at all unusual to see people walking down the streets wearing face masks to keep out the bad air. I have often thought that one of the few benefits of the obligatory head covering is that at least it keeps women’s hair cleaner.
Yet sometimes, in the early morning, after a windy night or a heavy snowfall, Tehran dazzles. The air is fresh and clean. The yellow-gray fog that has lain thick over the city lifts to reveal Damavand, one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Sometimes I have come upon half-hidden treasures: an ornate nineteenth-century villa hidden behind a grimy brick wall adorned with exposed electrical wiring; or, near the bazaar, a winding street too narrow for my car; or an Art Deco house in gray stone that I longed to see painted South Miami pink; or a decades-old wishing well decorated with candles and framed portraits of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, where people leave their dreams along with their 1,000 rial bills.
When I come to Tehran, I often stay at the Laleh International Hotel. The fourteen-story, 386-room concrete structure had been the Inter-Continental in the Old Regime, one of the top-of-the-line hotels built by Americans. Those were the days when Western businessmen crowded into Tehran seeking lucrative business deals. A Sheraton, a Hilton, and a Hyatt, with American decor and hamburgers on the menu, also had been built to make them feel at home. They all were confiscated, renamed, and Islamicized by the revolutionaries. Today the Laleh (which means “tulip,” the symbol of martyrdom) is owned by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture, which also finds the hospitality business a good way to monitor the comings and going of Western journalists. But like the renamed streets, the big hotels are still widely known by their prerevolutionary names. I picked up my copy of the English-language Tehran Times one day to find a large front-page ad for a carpet merchant’s annual sale at “Tehran’s Esteqlal (ex-Hilton) Hotel.”
I can plot the course of Iran’s revolution by the changes I have seen at the Laleh. After the Shah left the country, his portrait and that of his wife that hung in the lobby were turned toward the wall; with the success of the revolution, they were taken down. The ayatollahs’ plainclothes security guards replaced the Shah’s plainclothes security guards. Milton Meyer, an American travel agent married to an Iranian, kept his business open in the shop off the lobby after the revolution and even after the American embassy was seized. Later, he moved his business across the street, and eventually he was arrested. In April 1994, he was sentenced to twenty-four months in prison and fined more than $200,000 after confessing, Iranian authorities said, to corruption and espionage charges.
The Mozaffarian brothers have kept one of their swank jewelry shops at the Laleh, a tribute to the staying power of capitalism in the Islamic Republic. Their prices are exorbitant—much higher than the bazaar—but that is the cost of shopping in the hotel. Whenever I enter the shop, they make me tea and sit me down and show me their museum-quality treasures. They are particularly proud of a necklace
“Traffic,” he concluded, “is worse than life.”
“So you hate your job?” I asked him.
“I love my job!” he exclaimed, to my surprise. “It energizes me. On the road, I can get away with things.”
The streets of Tehran are so clogged with cars—most of which are more than fifteen years old and lack exhaust filters—that Tehran has become one of the most polluted cities in the world, alongside Mexico City, Bangkok, and Jakarta. Tehran’s location at the foot of the Alborz mountain range limits the free circulation of air. Radio and television announcements warn children and old people to stay home, schools can shut down for days, and it is not at all unusual to see people walking down the streets wearing face masks to keep out the bad air. I have often thought that one of the few benefits of the obligatory head covering is that at least it keeps women’s hair cleaner.
Yet sometimes, in the early morning, after a windy night or a heavy snowfall, Tehran dazzles. The air is fresh and clean. The yellow-gray fog that has lain thick over the city lifts to reveal Damavand, one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Sometimes I have come upon half-hidden treasures: an ornate nineteenth-century villa hidden behind a grimy brick wall adorned with exposed electrical wiring; or, near the bazaar, a winding street too narrow for my car; or an Art Deco house in gray stone that I longed to see painted South Miami pink; or a decades-old wishing well decorated with candles and framed portraits of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, where people leave their dreams along with their 1,000 rial bills.
When I come to Tehran, I often stay at the Laleh International Hotel. The fourteen-story, 386-room concrete structure had been the Inter-Continental in the Old Regime, one of the top-of-the-line hotels built by Americans. Those were the days when Western businessmen crowded into Tehran seeking lucrative business deals. A Sheraton, a Hilton, and a Hyatt, with American decor and hamburgers on the menu, also had been built to make them feel at home. They all were confiscated, renamed, and Islamicized by the revolutionaries. Today the Laleh (which means “tulip,” the symbol of martyrdom) is owned by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture, which also finds the hospitality business a good way to monitor the comings and going of Western journalists. But like the renamed streets, the big hotels are still widely known by their prerevolutionary names. I picked up my copy of the English-language Tehran Times one day to find a large front-page ad for a carpet merchant’s annual sale at “Tehran’s Esteqlal (ex-Hilton) Hotel.”
I can plot the course of Iran’s revolution by the changes I have seen at the Laleh. After the Shah left the country, his portrait and that of his wife that hung in the lobby were turned toward the wall; with the success of the revolution, they were taken down. The ayatollahs’ plainclothes security guards replaced the Shah’s plainclothes security guards. Milton Meyer, an American travel agent married to an Iranian, kept his business open in the shop off the lobby after the revolution and even after the American embassy was seized. Later, he moved his business across the street, and eventually he was arrested. In April 1994, he was sentenced to twenty-four months in prison and fined more than $200,000 after confessing, Iranian authorities said, to corruption and espionage charges.
The Mozaffarian brothers have kept one of their swank jewelry shops at the Laleh, a tribute to the staying power of capitalism in the Islamic Republic. Their prices are exorbitant—much higher than the bazaar—but that is the cost of shopping in the hotel. Whenever I enter the shop, they make me tea and sit me down and show me their museum-quality treasures. They are particularly proud of a necklace
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