The Jewel in the Desert

Eskandar's Prision with it's windtower.


Jameh Mosque.

Yazd is a beautiful city. It's horizon is graced with the old windtowers (badgir) which used to keep the homes cool. The system depended on the winds and the ghanats, both in abundance here. From the plane, I could see the little mounds of the ghanats. They reminded me of little ant mounds. These ghanats, or underground water channels, are common to all desert towns, and Yazd is no exception. The windtowers are the natural aircondition system (a much healthier one) which consist of four parts: the body which contains shafts; the air shelves which catch the hot air; flaps which redirect the wind; and the roof covering. The winds enter the house over a pool of water and cooled off, in turn creating a natural aircondition. The shafts control the direction of the hot winds. I was able to experience this cool air in one of the houses I visited this morning. It was amazing how cool the breeze coming down the badgir was.

This morning I went to Yazd Cultural Heritage office and spoke to Mr. Safi'i who was a very busy man and I had to negotiate with his secretary to let me see him. He spoke to me for about 5-10 minutes, as there were people waiting to see him and they had been there before me. I explained what I wanted to do and that Mr. Taghizadeh from Tehran Cultural Heritage had recommended I speak with him. He was listening but also signing papers, etc. and gave me some information about visiting schools that teach crafts, but unfortunately, he said, they are closed for the summer. I explained that I wanted to see a traditional master at work and then he gave me the name of a setting where Cultural Heritage has masters come and demonstrate their craft. Not what I wanted, but a place to start.

The Offices of Yazd Cultural Heritage are located in a very old house (200 years old) belonging to the Lari family. They Lari family sold this lovely house to the city and the city in turn spent a lot of money to renovate it and now houses the offices there. The Lari House, or Khan-e Lari as it is known, is a beautiful house. I can't tell you how lovely it is. All adobe, with a central courtyard and pool, an alcove covered with grapevines to sit under by the pool, and of course, the windtower. The doors, the windows, the interiors, all are spectacular; woodwoork and colored glass, plaster work, and anything you can imagine to aesthetically delight your senses. The city of Yazd did a nice job with this place. I'm trying to upload a picture, but since it's not my computer, it's a bit hard to do so.

We went to see Zendaneh Eskandar, or Alexander's Prison which was right next door. This is an interesting 15th century building with artists/craft people working their art, but only the sitar/tar maker was there. He was a very nice young man by the name of Moslem Mirzazadeh and he gave me some good information on two "Ostads" who are working in the bazaar. One is a weaver of traditional fabrics, and the other one is a dye master. I'm heading there this afternoon. One has to be indoors from noon till 5 PM. We are talking about desert heat here! Alexander's Prison was actually a poem in one of Hafez's poetries, describing this building and it's use by Alexander to kill people. It is not known for sure whether the deep well in the ground was used by Alexander to kill prisoners or not. After Alexander's prison, Mom and I went to some of the traditional guest houses and checked out their rooms. Our hotel was just too far away from the center of the town and I need to be closer to the bazaar. We settled on one which is rather nice and up to Mom's liking. I preferred some of the smaller ones, but she didn't like the size of the rooms. So off we went back to the hotel, packed our bags, and now we are in this hotel with a very nice room close to the center of the city and the bazaar. Shahriar, my cousin, was not around so we left him a message. We haven't seen him since we arrived yesterday afternoon. Chances are, this business of taking us to his hotel (he has been staying there for the last year) and not letting us pay was Aunt Ghashangi's idea.