On September 29, 1974, I wrote in my diary that we had passed by a village whose mud houses had domed roofs. We had left Mashhad in northeastern Iran, a large city that was once an oasis on the Silk Road, and later became a major destination for Shia pilgrims. I remember an old man in turban waving angrily at me when I took photos from across the street of the Imam Reza shrine. A young guy offered to guide us through a museum within the shrine, but he rushed us through the rooms and didn’t seem to know much about the objects. The only thing he knew was that everything was worth millions of dollars…
The Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, Iran.
Photo: Hans Sandberg, 1974.
Before we knew it, we were at the exit, and he showed us that he expected a tip for his service. I don’t remember if we gave him anything, but maybe we did to get rid of him.
The road from Mashhad to Herat in Afghanistan went southeast through a desert plain with mountains on both sides. The landscape was mostly sand-colored, except for where the land had been plowed making it dark brown. The only vegetation consisted of low bushes and tufts of grass.
Between Iran and Afghanistan. Photo: Hans Sandberg, 1974.
For some reason I didn’t write anything about the time when we were stoned by local kids in a Turkmen town. It must have been the previous day. We had driven north from Tehran, across Mount Damavand, and once we had descended from the mountain, we were met by a green and lush riviera on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. After a break for swimming, we continued east towards Gorgan, capital of the Golestan province. Our drivers drove into a small town, hoping to find a restaurant. They parked the buses on the main street, and we left the buses to take a look at the town but were soon surrounded by a dozen young boys who soon began to grope the women, who in their eyes were indecent as they did not wear the burka. Several boys stuck their hands between the girls' legs. The situation quickly escalated, so the girls retreated into the buses, while a couple of us men formed a chain to hold back the rough kids. The buses slowly began to move. Once all the girls were safe on board, we ran after the buses and jumped in through the open front doors. We could hear rocks falling all around us and some hit the buses, but none of us were hit.
It was a nasty experience, and we were shocked to have been treated with such hostility. The only explanation I could come up with at the time was that the British colonialists once had staged a massacre in the area, which
Jan Myrdal had written somewhere. But that was a long time ago, and it was more likely that the aggression reflected cultural intolerance and Islamic fundamentalism. Recently, I learned that the area at the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea has been subject to a long series of invasions, including one by
Alexander the Great (ca 330 BCE.) If we had continued north, we could have visited the remains of the Great Wall of Gorgan – 195 km of fortifications – which protected the Iranian Parthian Empire from attacks by the nomads to the north at about the same time as the Chinese built the Great Wall of China for similar reasons. (For those who want to delve into the long and dramatic history of the nomads, I recommend
Kenneth W. Harl's fascinating lecture series
The Barbarian Empires of the Steppes published by The Teaching Company/The Great Courses in 2014).
*
We arrived at the Islam Kalah border station on a paved road through a flat, dry, and desolate desert landscape. We first stopped at the Iranian side and continued a short distance through no-man's land until we entered the Afghan side where the soldiers walked at their own pace, wearing uniforms that had not seen an iron for many years. I re-read Myrdal's Afghanistan book where he describes his and Gun Kessle's visit to Islam Kalah in the summer of 1958. They had slept in their Citroën CV2 on the Iranian side, and were happy when they entered Afghanistan, where the customs chief offered tea and introduced his brothers to the long-distance guests. We didn't get any tea, but we there were 41 of us in the two buses, so it was perhaps a bit too much to ask for. I interpreted the Afghans' behavior as bold and proud. They didn’t bow to worldly authorities in the same way as in Iran, I thought, influenced by my Swedish prophet.
When customs were completed, we set off in the direction of Herat, which for millennia has been located in the strategic and fertile valley of the river Hari Rud. This location has been both Herat's fortune and curse. Over and over, the city has been invaded, looted, pillaged, and the population slaughtered. The city was always rebuilt, but its bloody history continues to this day. Herat was called Artacoana and was the capital of Ariana, when Alexander passed by in search of the satrap Bessus of Bactria, who was fleeing after having murdered the Persian ruler Darius the Third.
The Citadel in Herat. First built under Alexander the Great,
the fortress was destroyed many times. The current building
was built in 1305. Photo: Hans Sandberg, 1974.
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