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Tuesday 2004-05-25 - Tabriz, Iran
A hard-to-find church
We take the city bus to the center of Tabriz again, and go looking for the Armenian Maryam church, near the bazaar according to our little map. We can’t find it, and when we are obviously looking around us, an older man spots us and guides us there: he guessed what we were looking for because he himself is an Armenian. The church is in the block where we were looking, but with no obvious entrance: you have to go into an alley, then turn right into another alley, then knock on an iron gate.
We’re let into the courtyard by a friendly old man, but alas the church itself, dating back to 1782, is closed, and only opened for religious holidays. He tells us a little about Armenians in Iran: they’re only a very small minority with about 250,000 people in all. Here in Tabriz there are 4 churches, and they even have an Armenian school where the children learn Armenian (which has its own script), Farsi (written in Arabic script) and English (written in Roman script). They also used to have their own newspaper here (there’s a remnant of the printing press in the garden) but now there’s an Armenian newspaper only in Tehrān. Many of the Armenians here live in the flats around the church; the buildings are owned by the church.
Conversation in the bazaar
After our visit to the Armenian church, our next goal is the bazaar, across the square. The bazaar in Tabriz is the oldest bazaar in Iran; not only is it very large but also very beautiful. It covers one huge block, and has all covered “streets” with vaults of brickwork, and sometimes larger halls. The brickwork is intricate at times and in many places very nicely restored. Also there are 55 open courtyards, many caravansaries, and countless small passages.
A man in a green jacket approaches us and tries to guide us — which we don’t want — but we don’t find a way to get rid of him politely. Sometimes he irritatingly tells us what we can see easily with our own eyes (“this is the paper bazaar”), then again he comes with interesting facts (like the 55 courtyards). At last it transpires he wants to show us his brother’s carpet shop. We explain we won’t be able to buy anything, with still such a long trip before us but that’s fine with him - just come along for a cup of tea, he suggests; we agree.
That turns out to be a good decision — we have a very interesting conversation over tea. The older brother doesn’t speak English so our guide translates: the carpet trader travels in many countries around Iran to buy carpets and thus has a different view of the world than most Iranians. First he tells us he thinks Carla and I are overdoing it a bit, the way we are clothed (we explain we feel more comfortable this way). He also tells us that Iranians are suppressed, and have little access to information because all information sources are controlled by the government. It’s obvious he is not one of the conservative Iranians, and hopes the situation will get more liberal here. So our tour of the bazaar ends with a nice meeting — this sets the theme for our trip through Iran.
Meeting in the park
After we take our leave form the carpet seller and his younger brother, ‘Green jacket’ no longer follows us. Our next goal is a visit to the beautiful Blue Mosque of Tabriz (Masjed-e Kabud, still in the process of being restored, very expertly) and after spending quite some time there we decide to call it a day and head for the park. We find a bench in the shade and watch the locals relax. Soon a man approaches us and asks if he can talk with us; we agree and he joins us on our bench.
He turns out to be an Azeri (not all that surprisingly as we should have known: this region is actually called East Azarbaijan and many Azeris live here; Tabriz is the capital of the province). His story matches that of the Armenian at the Maryam church and the carpet seller but adds new insights. He tells us that as opposed to the very small minority of the Armenians which obviously don’t form any threat, Azeris aren’t allowed to use their own language: Turkish is forbidden here in Iran. Of course people speak it all the same (when they feel safe enough) but it’s not taught in any school and thus they can write only in Farsi.
Another surprising tidbit he tells us is that while alcohol is strictly forbidden — if you are found drinking it you may end up in prison for six months — some two million people are addicted to drugs which are easily (though not openly) available; they can go to some parks to use the drugs. Also according to him, many young people (four million) are depressed. Except at university, young men are not allowed to speak to girls, and if caught, a young man may even be forced to marry the girl in question (frankly, that sounds a bit far-fetched to us). Like the carpet seller, he brings up the point of access to information, and tells us that many people have a satellite dish, which is forbidden. A dish can be bought secretly if you know the way, and is kept indoors. At the recent elections for parliament here, when so many liberal candidates were removed from the list, only 14% of people in this region actually went to vote — partly because there was no candidate left which they wanted to vote for, partly as a form of protest. In general, it seems that while things were gradually getting more liberal before, now that’s being turned back again.
Of course we can’t check all the things he tells us, but he seems remarkably open and clearly eager to talk about the problems in his country and for the Azeri minority he belongs to. We end up staying much longer in the park than we had planned. All in all, an interesting day, even more for the people than the sites we visited.
