The fascinating ancient Iranian city of Yazd (Yazd (Iran))

Member Name: koshkha

Product:	Yazd (Iran)
Date:	07/04/09 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots to see, friendly people, a great introduction to Zoroastrianism

Disadvantages: Pick the right time to go - it can get very hot and very cold

It's my guess that you are probably NOT thinking 'Hmm, Yazd, that sounds familiar'. To date I don't think I've met anyone who hasn't been to Iran (or thought of going) who's even heard of this fabulous city. It might ring some bells if I mentioned that it was historically known by the rather more glamorous name of Ysatis - yes, as in the perfume by Givenchy.

You can't help thinking that when the marketing people at Givenchy sat down to brainstorm new names, they probably weren't thinking of women in chadors sweating away in the desert sun when they came up with that name.

If I were to categorise the cities of Iran in terms of touristic appeal, I suspect that cities like Esfahan and Shiraz would be the giants of Iranian tourism - the Manchester United and Chelsea of the tourist league. Poor old Yazd would be languishing down in the relegation zone of whatever they now call the old 3rd division. It's the sort of place you might well miss if you were in a bit of a hurry and that would be a shame, because this bizarre city squeezes a mind-boggling array of attractions into what's really quite a small place and offers us an insight into thousands of years of architectural adaptations for living in an extreme climate. It's also the best place in Iran to get exposed to the bizarre and ancient religion of Zoroastrianism and of course, like every city in Iran, it's got some pretty cool mosques as well.

~Where is Yazd?~

If you look at a map of Iran, Yazd is pretty much slap-bang in the middle of the country. You can reach it by road if you really want to but air fares in Iran are so cheap that they make Ryanair look really expensive. A one way ticket for the flight from Tehran costs around $20 - Iran's got a lot of oil, you see, though undoubtedly, you'll be aware of that already. In terms of proximity to the other major cities, it's about 430 miles from Tehran and 175 miles south of Esfahan.

~What is Yazd?~

Geographically speaking, it's a high altitude (1200m) oasis surrounded by mountains and deserts. In the summer it's exceptionally hot with temperatures consistently above 40C and in the winter it's cold enough to freeze your bones with temperatures down to minus 20. But regardless of the time of year, it's always very dry. The annual rainfall figures of 2.4 inches can easily be exceeded on a wet day in Manchester so water management is as big an issue as the challenge of staying cool.

~Why is Yazd significant?~

The city was recognised by UNESCO's world heritage listings as the second oldest continually inhabited city in the world. I've heard other places claim that accolade but if UNESCO say it's true then that's good enough for me. For those of you who are now thinking "which was the oldest?" I'll leave you to dwell on that and the answer will be at the bottom of the review*. The locals of course claim it's the oldest but then a little bit of exaggeration can be forgiven.

Records of the city date back to more than 3000 years to the time when it was part of the empire of a Zoroastrian tribe called the Medes. Over the millennia since it was founded the harsh and inhospitable climate meant that few invaders could be bothered to fight over it. Consequently it was left undisturbed by the ravages of war and its ancient architecture and traditions survived the passage of time - even though much of the city is constructed from adobe (mud).

When Gengis Khan stomped through the Middle East in the 13th Century, many artists and intellectuals fled to the city as a safe haven and even Marco Polo dropped by in 1272 and described it as a "good and noble city". (As a further clue to the identity of the oldest city, unlike Yazd which survived by being ignored, the other city has been fought over almost constantly and still is today).

~Adaptation to climate~

Water, as you'd imagine, is exceptionally precious. If you only get two and a half inches per year, you'll want to make sure that not a drop gets wasted and so a vast system of underground cisterns was created to store water and is still in use today. Tall chimney-like towers called badgirs catch even the lightest of breezes and somehow convert them into cool air in a form of ancient but rather effective air-con. Houses are built to keep the elements out, often with thick walls, small windows and inner courtyards. Ice-houses are also common and were used to store ice from the nearby mountains.

~Zoroastrianism~

Zoroastrianism is one of the world's most ancient mono-theistic religions and is a fascinatingly complex system of beliefs that shares many similarities with later religions as well as having many unique aspects. There's the fight between good and evil which is pretty much standard but the religion holds both fire and water to be sacred, leaves dead bodies to be picked clean by vultures and (a bit trivial but my favourite bit of Zoroastrianism) believes that hedgehogs are holy little critters because they eat up slugs and bugs and other 'manifestations of the dark side'. Now if that doesn't sound like something out of Star Wars, I don't know what does.

The Zoroastrian community in Yazd is the largest and most vibrant in Iran and has survived a lot of the persecution that wiped the religion out in other parts of the country by virtue of Yazd's isolation. The top tourist attractions associated with the religion are the haunting 'Towers of Silence' on the outskirts of town where the dead were left for cleansing by the birds and the Atashkadeh (or fire temple) where the fire has burned uninterrupted for about 1600 years.

~Our visit~

We flew in from Tehran on an internal flight which took less than an hour and then drove from the airport to a hotel complex called the Caravan which was to be our base for a couple of days. On the first day we had time for little more than nipping out for dinner in a converted hammam (the Iranian authorities closed down the country's bath-houses for being a bit too racy for their liking and many are now restaurants).

Over the two days that followed we had a fantastic time exploring the narrow streets of the old city, the Zoroastiran highlights of the Towers of Silence and the Fire Temple, the Muslim delights of the spectacular Jameh mosque with its 48m high minarets, the semi-mythological intrigues of Alexander's Prison, the bizarre local sweet makers with their quite disgusting concoctions and most oddly of all we spent one evening watching a group of very loud wrestlers shouting, grunting and sweating in a pit surrounded by tourists.

Two days really was the perfect amount of time to be there - any shorter and we'd have had to really cut back on what we saw, any longer and I think we'd have had enough. We didn't manage to see everything the city had to offer - I confess we skipped the Water Museum (though I'm told it's very good) and we didn't climb the 33 m high 'badgir' (or 'wind catcher') though in retrospect we probably should have made the effort. We did get giggly on the 100% alcohol free fruit beer and make up lots of bad puns based around 'badgirs' and 'good-girs' and far too many stories about evil badgers - jokes that were far too esoteric to ever put down in writing and required the gallows humour of alcohol withdrawal and too much sun and sand in order to be funny. However, after the rather 'full on' nature of Tehran, Yazd was a very calm and gentle way to leave the big city behind and get to know desert life in Iran in a city where people live today with technology developed over the past 5000 years.

* The oldest continually inhabited city in the world is of course Jerusalem.

Summary: An unexpectedly fabulous destination.