Tabriz in earthquakes- Beautiful Iran 8

The Blue Mosque in Tabriz

When I woke up in the morning of April 22, it was drizzling. I had stayed overnight at a hotel in Tabriz after a long drive from Takht-e Soleyman. 

Tabriz sits at a height of 1,350 m above sea-level, on the northern foot of the dormant volcano Kuh-e Sahand (3,707 m), one of the highest mountains in Azerbaijan province. This region is a prominent seismic zone, which has been often struck by big earthquakes leaving deep traces of damage here and there.

Today Tabriz is a major industrial and manufacturing city in northwestern Iran, but in the ancient times was a great caravan town on the Silk Road. Innumerable merchant travelers carrying silk, ceramics, spice, jewelry, and other foreign goods arrived there for exchange. In the center of the city is Tabriz Historic Bazaar, which was listed as World Heritage Site in 2010. 

After breakfast we made a visit in a light rain to the Historic Bazaar which appeared to stand in extensive grounds. We entered from a low and dark gate. The inside had a long arched corridor, which was narrower than I had expected. It was dimly lit, flanked with small stores. Each store had its own lighting, usually with naked light bulbs dangling from the ceiling. I was surprised to feel a few raindrops in my neck. They were falling from a small hole of the brick dome. We all followed our tour guide Mr. Musa in a labyrinth of corridors.

Mr. Musa explained, “This bazaar was founded in the12th century, and  became famous by the 13th century. The people added one after another sub-bazaar to enlarge it. Today it is the large bazaar complex that consists of several sub-bazaars. For example, Amir Bazaar sells gold and jewelry. Mozzafarieh Bazaar sells carpet. Other bazaars sell many various goods.”

In the old days Italian Marco Polo (1254-1324) and Moroccan Ibn Battuta (1304-68) visited Tabriz and stopped at the bazaar. Ibn Battuta records in the Rihla (journey):

“I passed through the jewelers bazaar, and my eyes were dazzled by the varieties of precious stones that I beheld. They were displayed by beautiful mamluk [slaves] wearing rich garments with a waist sash of silk, who stood in front of the merchants, exhibiting the jewels to the Turks wives, who bought them in large quantities to outdo each other.”

Tabriz Historic Bazaar

We also passed through the jewelers bazaar, but I found no mannequins wearing rich garments to mesmerize my eyes. The bazaar was quiet indeed. We stopped only at the store of dried fruits and spices. I bought 1 kg of dried mulberry at 85,000 rials ($ 3.5).

Interestingly, the word origin of bazaar is from Persian, meaning “place of prices,” that is to say, marketplace. Walking around the marketplace, we suddenly stepped outside. It was a square courtyard with trees and a water reservoir in the center. The rain had lifted. Several cats were hunting for something to eat around the garbage bins.

The courtyard of the bazaar

From the 19th to the early 20th century, Swedish explorer Sven Hedin (1865-1952) and British orientalist Edward Browne (1862-1926) also visited Tabriz to leave the records of the then situation. 

Hedin writes in “Overland to India” (1910): “It is not long ago that Tabriz contained half a million of inhabitants. It was a serious blow to the town when it was razed to the ground in 1721 by an earthquake which cost 20,000 human lives. The town then stood nearer to the shore of Lake Urmia, and it was rebuilt on its present site, but it never recovered from the misfortune.”

It is interesting that old Tabriz stood near Lake Urmia, but he doesn’t refer to how near it was. Today Tabriz is some 90 km east of the lake. I wonder where old Tabriz was built, or whether it might have been moved 90km east? However, Tabriz Historic Bazaar is still as it was ...

I came to another grim reality that the lake has been drying up, the shore line far receding. Lake Urmia is a salt lake that has been experiencing a serious drought over the past decade. “Historical documents indicate that Urmia Lake experienced a severe drought more than 200 years ago. In 1800, the maximum depth was only 75 cm,” according to the report (World Agriculture, March 2012). 

Let us return to our tour. We left the bazaar for Arg-e Tabriz and then the Blue mosque (Masjid-i-Kabud) like Hedin and Browne did. 

Arg-e Tabriz is the mosque and citadel constructed in the Ilhanate period (1256-1335). It was a ruin more than 30 m high, which had been destroyed by the repeated earthquakes. Next to the site was a newly constructed huge modern mosque. Arg-e Tabriz looked too devastated to appeal the glory of the past.

Arg-e Tabriz

Browne once climbed the top of the site. He writes in “A year amongst the persians” (1887-1888): “From this height, in former days, criminals were hurled into the ditch below. On one occasion, we were informed, a woman condemned to suffer death in this manner was so buoyed up by the air inflating her loose garments that she reached the ground uninjured.”

We heard the same episode from Mr. Musa. He added, “Whether this story is true or not, I don’t know.” It was the same punch line which might have been repeated by many tour guides.

The Blue Mosque was constructed in 1465 during the era of Kara Koyunlu (the Black Sheep Turkomens) dynasty, but was also severely damaged by the 1779 earthquake. Browne refers to it, “The Blue Mosque is now little more than a ruin.” However, reconstruction began in 1973 by an architect of Tabriz, Reza Memaran Benam. Its tiling is not yet finished.

The mosaic tiles with texts from the Koran 

At the gate of the mosque, fronting the ancient Silk Road, we saw the surviving blue tiled walls with exquisite mosaic arabesque in ocher, green, and white. Inside I saw the repaired arch showing intense blue of lapis lazuli with delicate golden painting. I took pictures not to forget these beauties.

The mosaic arabesque 

Inside of the Blue Mosque

 The fragments made by the earthquake in 1779

Today Iranian architects and engineers are said to be engaged in seismic technology to protect these buildings from coming earthquakes. I was very impressed by their efforts because we have suffered the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami on 3.11, 2011, leaving 15,883 deaths and 2,654 people still missing. Your crisis is ours, too.