ENRICO MARTINO

The capital, Iran's most secular and liberal city, is the megalopolis-outpost of a country of “A Thousand and One Night”, over eight million inhabitants who become more than fourteen with the metropolitan area. To the north it stops under the theatrical rock wall of the Elburz Mountains, to the south it slides into an endless sequence of box-like buildings. No one really knows how the chaotic soul functions but this adrenaline capital, vital as never before, from south to north, goes up from 1100 to 1800 meters. An overlap of worlds that is so HISTORICAL HEART bmuch more than a chaotic jumble of concrete and crazy traffic blanketed by a miasma of air pollution, this is the nation's dynamic beating heart and the place to get a handle on modern Iran and what its future will likely be. Exploring this fascinating metropolis will transport you on a journey through more than 250 years of Iranian history, from the glittering Golestan Palace to the adjacent Grand Bazaar where goods and diverse people cross each other in an immense cave of Ali Baba where you can get everything, you just need to know how to look. On the other hand, smuggling is good for trade and therefore the embargo is alive because the bazaari, the big traders as usual practical people, liberal in economics and nationalist in politics, have generously financed the revolution in a gentleman's agreement in which faith and business do not stick their noses in business. others. Meanwhile Tehran, while seeking a new status as the capital of the Middle East, continues its vaguely schizophrenic existence of rough Shiite Los Angeles, suspended between a Persian tradition imbued with Shia Islamism and a global metropolitan culture. More than a city, a fascinating state of confusion in progress.