Iran

Here is a selection of photos from a trip to Iran, starting in Tabriz at the 43rd Iranian Mathematics Conference. The photos are taken from a larger selection of almost 600 photos. That selection can be seen in a Dropbox photo directory. The total number of pictures we took in Iran was about 1800.

The photos below are linked to their larger versions in another directory of the present website.

I have also written a verbal account of our trip (94 pages of size A5, 12-point type, last edited on February 2, 2016):

• pdf
• ps
• dvi
• tex

My webpages with Iran photos are four:

1. Tabriz (the present page)
2. Isfahan
3. Shiraz
4. Yazd and Tehran

(They were on one page, but my cellphone could not download the whole of the page; so I broke it up.)

Tabriz

Arrival

With Soley and Şafak, Ayşe and I arrived in Tabriz around 7:30 on Monday morning, August 27, 2012. Prints of my ten fingers were taken with stamp-pad ink.

Our talks

Ayşe's was on Monday afternoon; mine, on Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday afternoon, we saw some sights around Tabriz city center:

Bazaar

The Tabriz Bazaar is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (one of almost a thousand in the world).

Constitution Museum

The Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905–7 is an important theme of Amin Maalouf's historical novel Samarkand, which I had read; but I hardly remembered it.

Friday Mosque

St Mary's Church

The caretaker let us through this gate and into the church (which at the moment has only a minimal Wikipedia article).

At this point, my camera battery had died; I used my mobile phone instead. The last photo is the intersection near the church; but the church was not directly accessible from there.

Castle of Tabriz

It is unclear whether the Arg-e Tabriz or Arg of Tabriz was originally intended as a military structure, or a mosque. It did however appear to have a mihrab.

Kandovan

Wednesday morning, we visited this Cappadocia-like village.

Ceremony

Foreign participants at the Tabriz meeting were recognized here.

After the ceremony, we saw more sites in town:

Azerbaijan Museum

Blue Mosque

People

Thursday morning, we socialized at the mathematics department of Tabriz University.

Closing ceremony

This was in Persian (except for one brief talk); but it seemed to represent the injection of religion and nationalism into an event that ostensibly concerned the universal subject of mathematics.

Farewell to Tabriz

We took an overnight bus to Isfahan with the kind help and companionship of local mathematicians.

Next: Isfahan