Day 48 : Book Excerpt : Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn

Hamadan is steeped in history and was founded, according to legend, by the mystical King Jamshid. It has been inhabited for at least four thousand years and was the capital city for the Median Empire (750-550 BC). It was subsequently the summer capital of the Achaemenids (550-330 BC) and was known as Hagmataneh or “the meeting place.” In its heyday, Hamadan was one of the world’s great cities, containing exquisite palaces decorated lavishly in precious metals. However, all this wealth caught the eye of numerous invaders, and with these its importance as a city slowly diminished.

It began its decline after the Arab conquest of the midseventh century, but was restored as the region’s capital for sixty odd years under the Seljuks in the twelfth century. The Mongols weren’t so good to the place and smashed it up good and proper in 1220, as did the Tamerlanes in 1386. After this, it regained some of its former affluence and enjoyed a period of stability until the eighteenth century when the Turks decided to invade.

Until recently, Hamadan had a large Jewish community, which had been in the city since the fifth century BC. This community, like the city itself, has declined dramatically and is now apparently down to no more than thirty-five people. Hamadan contains Iran’s most significant Jewish pilgrimage site, which is a shrine said to hold the remains of Esther, the Jewish wife of Achaemenid King Xerxes I. The Old Testament Book of Esther is named after her, and, along with the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel, paints a favorable picture of the relationship between the Jews and the ancient Persian Achaemenid Empire.

I was in Hamadan, like most Iranian tourists, to use it as a base to visit the famous Ali Sadr Caves some sixty miles from here. The caves sounded awesome and had only been discovered some forty years ago by a local shepherd wandering about in search of a lost goat. What the lucky chap stumbled upon was a spectacular series of caves containing vast clear lakes and rivers. It had been surveyed in 2001 by a joint German and British geological team who recorded a total of seven miles of chambers, but there are probably far more as of yet undiscovered.
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I purchased a ticket and walked to the entrance of the cave. The blessed coolness of the air was the first thing that hit me as I walked down a gradual flight of steps into the opening chamber containing a massive underground lake. Here a long jetty-like platform hugged the water’s edge and two paddleboats waited for passengers. This was clearly where the crowds must have queued on busy days but today, mercifully, there was just a single family and me. I couldn’t believe my luck.

We all had to put on lifejackets, which for the family’s little daughter of about four was nearly as big as she was. We got in the boat, which was connected with a rope to a paddleboat operated by a young guy of about fourteen. A guide joined our boat and slowly we moved off. The water was a shimmering green color, and the clearest I’d ever seen in my life. Looking over the boat’s edge, I could see an immensely long way down into the water, which was as deep as forty-five feet. Strangely, nothing lives in the water or in the caves themselves. Even bats don’t inhabit the place, and there is no evidence of human or animal activity in the caves over the centuries.

We slowly drifted past otherworldly rock formations, which our guide described in Farsi only, leaving me to ponder them myself without explanation. I preferred it that way. Hanging down from sections of the cave’s stalactite-covered roof were labels for some of the larger formations, identifying them with appropriate titles such as “Statue of Liberty,” etc. These were accompanied by separate placards containing quotes from the Koran. I was mesmerized as we drifted slowly along.

The lighting was just enough to reveal the cave’s grandeur but not so bright as to illuminate every nook and cranny and take away any of its mystique. We glided gently past many interconnecting chambers, all filled with the same clear water. Some looked like mystical and holy grottos, others like the hidden underground lair for a James Bond criminal’s secret submarine. We drifted along for about thirty minutes, passing only one other boat going the opposite way, before arriving at another little jetty where a walkway led into the center of the caves. Here we disembarked. I let the family go first, not out of good manners but to give them a few minutes head start so I could walk around in complete silence.

It was simply wonderful and I felt a reverence for the place. That is until I got to a little café playing music. I quickly skipped past this and came face-to-face with the most awe-inspiring chamber. It was 131 feet high and had a jagged boulder protruding from its roof. Strewn all around were the remains of many other boulders from partial collapses over the millennia. I stood in this cathedral-like inner chamber and truly felt as if I were in the center of the earth.


~~Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn -by- Jamie Maslin