Why we are in Iran…
When we said that we would go to Iran, the first response we encountered was “What are you going to do there?” mostly but we knew before we went that Iran was one of the most important places to visit. As historian İlber Ortaylı said, it should definitely not be postponed to get to know a country and its people who has deep roots with our own for thousands of years. There is a tremendous history and civilization in Iran, which you see the reflections of this civilization better as you get to know its people closely.
Even though Tehran, where we started our Iran trip, is the capital of Iran and as one of the first places which comes to mind when you think about Iran, there are many more beautiful places than Tehran, but of course it is imperative to see Tehran as well.
Social structure
Tehran is a very cosmopolit city. It hosts almost every community of the Middle East. You can meet people from many nationalities such as Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Armenians and Pashtus of course, in Tehran.
The Azerbaijanis in Tehran speak Turkish very well, and most of the taxi drivers know Turkish singers well, but frankly, we did not come across as many Turkish speakers as we were said before. Even English was sometimes troublesome in many places even in Tehran. As you head southern parts you may face more problem about English but everybody tries to their best to understand you.
But what attracted our attention most about language was that whenever we got into the Tehran metro, at least 3-4 people were working English or German with their books. By the way, Iranians, just like the Russians, use the subways as libraries. Many people read something in metros. Although unpleasant things have happened to them after Shah Pahlavi, they show everywhere that they are an ancient civilization.
Like many Iranian cities, the community is spread between the extremes of conservatism and progressivism. But the majority seemed to have the turban and veil be removed at the first opportunity, as far as we can get it out of our conversations. Almost all those who wear headscarves, except for those who wear Chador, are holding their headscarves between wearing it or not wearing it.
Of course, there are still very conservative ones, but there are no situations such as stoping the non-headscarved ones on the road and taking them to the police station as it has been known abroad. It seem like a black propaganda about the country.
Even video shooting and taking photograph were said to be a problem in many youtube vlogs but I wandered with a camera like a telescope for 15 days and no one even looked weirdly. In fact Iranian are very interested in photography and you can see many people with good cameras. Unfortunately, people loves to exaggerate and this creates disinformation sometimes.
Of course, in the past, police patrols made announcements to people who wandered on the streets with improper clothes according to the state, and sometimes arrested them.
While the rich part of Tehran, the northern region, is quite free and progressive, some places still remain conservative. The shadow of Khomeini can be felt everywhere, especially in the outer parts of the city.
We used Couchsurfing in Iran and this created more opportunities for us to get to know the Iranian people. We can say that they are unbelievable people.
Transportation
The traffic in Tehran is as complex as we can say Never! if you have a plan to enter Iran with your own vehicle . Sometimes you find yourself with your eyes wide open in a taxi whose driver use it with acrobatic movements, often approaching each other by maybe 1 cm. So don’t even think about going into Tehran or Iran with your private vehicle.
You get used to the acrobatic movements of the taxis after a while and the taxi fares are unbelievably cheap. So even it is a little dangerous to use the taxis in Tehran it is the most logical way to use it after the metro system.
They have an application called Snapp which is awesome. It’s just like the Über system but with a difference of being spreaded through the whole taxi system of Iran. When you need a taxi in your location, you are calling a taxi using the application, as you have chosen your destination in advance the app tells you how much you will pay before the taxi arrives.It was very surprising to see that being able to use it everywhere in Iran. At the end of the ride, you can score the driver that affects the rankings used to call them. A really great app.
Sometimes the driver calls you back and asks you exactly where you are and if he doesn’t speak English or you don’t know Persian, you may have some trouble.
Foto Source: wikimedia.org
The metro line is very developed in Tehran, almost like in Moscow, we traveled in Tehran mostly by metro and on foot, and of course it is very cheap. 10,000 people per person (7 cents).
The taxi prices are cheap enough to go to the airport from the city center in Shiraz, to cost only 130.000 riyals or only 1 dollar!!! And it was a 40 minutes ride.
Foto Kaynak: wikimedia.org
Currency and Iranian Economy
When we went in the summer of 2019, Tehran and Iran in general were really cheap due to the extreme devaluation. Such that, 2 people can have a dinner for 20$ at the Milad Tower in Tehran (which is one of the most luxurious restaurant in the city).
As a result of the wrong policies of Khomeini, Iran’s currency Riyal was extremely weakened before we went. Their money, which was four times more valuable until a few years ago, had melted away while we were in Iran. The first day we exchanged 100€ for 15.000.000 Riyals the second day for 18.000.000. It was extremely wavy.
Of course, this allowed us to have a very good and cheap holiday, but the cost of life and the worthlessness of money have become quite annoying for the people of Iran.
When we were there, the dollar was around 130,000 rials or 13,000 tomans, and you could have a 45-minute taxi ride or a fine meal for that.
The currency in Iran is Rial, but Rial is not used much, rather Toman is used. Toman is used more than Rial in Iran in spoken language, we saw the Rial only a few times on the labels.
Toman’s only difference from rial is one zero , for example, they say 10.000 toman for 100.000 rials, it’s technically like that but because of the abundance of zero, they throw 3 more zeros and say 10 toman briefly. In short, 10 tomans generally equals to 100,000 rials.
I think it is not possible to know the current rate or must be asked to an insider because the currency is exchanged at very different rates than in the international market.
For example, when you look at the internet while it was around 40,000 rials, we were exchanging at least 130,000 sometimes more in the black market on the streets.
Leave a Reply