Images of Iran
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Eclipse 1999 Images of Iran |
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| by John Walker |
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I was somewhat surprised, given how seriously folks in Iran take their religion, to find a number of shops open in Shiraz on Friday, the Islamic holy day, and street vendors along the Zand—the main street through the city—doing a brisk business in almost anything you can imagine. After visiting the Citadel shown in the earlier pictures, we stopped by the Muzé-yé Pars which was built by Karim Kahn for official receptions. It later became his tomb; today it's the Pars Museum, containing a number of artefacts from the Khan era and the history of the Shiraz region. It was closed, but a number of sidewalk booksellers had set up shop along the walls of the museum, including this fellow specialising in engineering whose wares included—that's right—an AutoCAD book with Sean O'Donnell's space shuttle drawing on the cover. The book to the right was also intriguing, but I decided it might be unwise to carry it through British customs on the way back to Switzerland, arriving on a flight from Tehran....