
Images in words from a travelling in Iran
Prof. Alexander Fedotov
This text is given to the Persian Bridge of Friendship blog by Professor Alexander Fedotov’s widow – Snejana Todorova-Fedotova. Alexander Fedotov was a Bulgarian orientalist of Russian origin, who was a specialist in East Asia, but also in the Mongolian and Tibetan space. He also had mutual sympathy for Iranians, Indians and other Eastern nations.
Unfortunately, both my trips to Iran were official. I say “unfortunately” because I never had the opportunity to walk around Tehran, Isfahan or Shiraz on my own. I realized long ago that if you want to feel the spirit of a country, of a people, you have to “go with the flow”, try to swim with the current, not “fight” the onslaught of local traditions, customs and tastes.
We landed in Tehran both times at night: the plane flies over the city for 30-40 minutes and you say to yourself: what must this city that has no beginning and no end be like. Tehran turned out to be almost endless; you can neither walk around this megalopolis of ten million people, nor see it all. I found a few places “for me” in it: the central part, home to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some magnificent museums around it, including the Koran Museum; Tehran Square, of which I probably saw only a fraction; the Museum of Modern Art. Overall, Tehran is a somewhat faceless city; you won’t find any mosques or historic mausoleums, except perhaps for Ayatollah Khomeini’s tomb, which has become a place of pilgrimage for millions of Iranians.
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