The New York Times, By ELAINE GLUSAC FEB. 8, 2016- Tourism in Iran is already popular with Europeans. Iranian officials told The Associated Press last fall that about five million foreign travelers visited Iran in 2014, and that the country aims to attract 20 million tourists, spending $30 billion, by 2025.

Among growth signs, Air France recently announced that it plans to start three flights weekly between Paris and Tehran beginning in April. Already Iran is a one-stop destination from New York via Istanbul, Dubai or Doha on Turkish Airlines, Emirates or Qatar Airways.

Iran hosts some of the world’s oldest cultural monuments, including 19 Unesco World Heritage Sites, and its varied terrain ranges from desert locales to ski resorts.

“It’s just extraordinarily beautiful, and the sites are as magnificent as any you can find in the world,” said William O. Beeman, a professor and chairman of the anthropology department at the University of Minnesota and an expert in Iran. “Isfahan is comparable to Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat. These are major centers of civilization that have been lovingly restored.”

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October 24, 2014 by Nellie Huang– If you’re looking for a country that surprises, then Iran is the place for you. Traveling Iran can be an eye-opening experience, considering how closed and misunderstood this Islamic Republic is. It is a rewarding place to visit especially for curious travelers who want to learn the basis of the country, who its people are, and what their culture stand for — beyond political issues and news headlines.

In all honesty, I went to Iran with no idea what to expect; but Iran still surprised me on so many levels. Unknown to many, it’s a very urban and populated country, with over 75 million people occupying a country that ranks 17th biggest in the world.  It’s the biggest country in Central Asia and also the most populated. Almost two-thirds of Iranians live in cities and many of its cities bursting at their seams with over five million people. Heavy traffic is a severe problem in the country,with the government increasing oil prices and building underground metro systems to help control the problems.

Cities like Tehran, Tabriz and Shiraz exude the modern and prosperous 21st-century vibes you’ll find in developed Middle Eastern cities, constantly buzzing with endless traffic, weaving through rows of markets, shops and tall buildings. There are people everywhere, literally in every street corner and square. Urban dwellers rush from one place to another, spotting heavy make-up and funky haircut. You’ll be surprised to find women pushing the limits by wearing hijab (headscarf) halfway back on their head and tight, colorful leggings or skinny jeans. Oh and even more over-the-top is how popular nose jobs are in Iran. It’s common to see women spotting bandages on their noses, the result of plastic surgery that is getting more and more popular by the day.

And of course, the warmth and hospitality of the people was the biggest surprise of all. “Welcome!” was the word I heard most in Iran, I lost count of the number of times when Iranians warmly welcomed me into their country. Perhaps because of the hospitable nature of the Central Asians or the fact that Iranians don’t receive many visitors in the country, they are undoubtedly the friendliest people I’ve ever met on my travels. Locals came up to me ever so often, wanting to know where I’m from, what I was doing in Iran, and how I liked their country. A few invited me to sit down with them for tea, while others ditched their plans and helped me get to where I was going. The people of Iran moved me with their genuine generosity and kindness — and it’s people like that who made my trip to Iran truly memorable.

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IRNA – Iranian officials and visiting European Union delegation headed by European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini signed various memoranda of understanding for cooperation on research on Saturday.

Iran’s participation in the EU Horizon 2020 framework program, with its 80 billion euro budget for the years 2014-2020 was also discussed between Iranian and EU officials.

Iranian and European officials underlined formation of a task group for boost of cooperation.

Renewable energies, peaceful nuclear issue, risk management, urban planning, earthquake engineering, climate change, water resources, food security, agriculture economy, and health were topics of cooperation agreements reached between Iranian and European officials.

Mogherini was in Tehran on Saturday at the head of a large delegation of EU officials to visit Iran in years. The two sides announced a string of joint projects—from the energy sector to migration and joint research work—in a bid to broaden bilateral relationship that was long restricted by the dispute over Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.

 EU mission in Iran

With a view to opening a full EU diplomatic mission in Iran an EU liaison team will be sent to Tehran, Mogherini and Zarif said in a joint statement.

“Today is a new beginning in Iran and EU relations. We hope this cooperation between the Iranian nation and European Union brings about shared interests and global development,” Zarif was quoted as saying by IRNA.

The EU executive’s visit comes on the heels of trips to Tehran by European governments seeking to revive ties with Iran after the July 2015 nuclear deal.

The EU and Iran will exchange business missions in the second half of this year and Brussels will assist Iran in becoming a member of the World Trade Organization, the statement said.

On the issue of human rights, which also figured in discussions, Mogherini said the EU would continue to be firm on its principles while maintaining dialogue with Iran.

Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani in a meeting with European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini on Saturday called for resolution of Iran’s banking problems.

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IRAN is hosting an international snowboard competition event in Dizin ski resort, north of the capital Tehran. The competition has provided ski enthusiasts to showcase their skills and talents.

Dizin ski complex is the first ski and winter sport resort in Iran which has been officially recognized and granted the title by the International Ski Federation for its capability in administrating official and international competitions.

It gained its official title for its specific physical and technical features such as the course slope, length of the course and the place where the competitions and races are to be held, as well as amenities and other recreational facilities.

The skiable are is 470 ha and the average snow depth is between 2 and 6 meters.

Dizin is a ski resort situated to the north of Tehran in Alborz mountain range at Gajereh region, and is just 71 km. (43 miles) north of Tehran, Iran.
The resort is accessible from Tehran by 2 roads, one is the upper road via Shemshak (71 Km. – This road is sometimes closed due to heavy snow) and the other one, the lower road via Karaj (120 km.).
The highest ski lift reaches 3,600 m (11,800 ft), making it one of the 40 highest ski resorts in the world.
The ski season in Dizin lasts longer than European ski resorts (from December to May) because of its high altitude.
The air is also drier than at a lot of European resorts, making for some excellent powder. The high number of sunny days makes it an excellent place for ski holidays.

Photo: Mohammad Mohaimani, Mehr

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Daf

Daf is one of the most ancient frame drums in Asia and North Africa. As a Persian instrument, in 20th century, it is considered as a Sufi instrument to be played in Khanghah-s for Zikr music but now this percussion instrument has recently become very popular and it has been integrated into Persian art music successfully.

Dotar

The dotar (literally in Persian meaning “two strings”), and it comes from a family of long-necked lutes and can be found throughout Central Asia, the Middle East and as far as the North East of China in Xinjiang too.

In Iran, the dotar is played mainly in the north and the east of Khorasan as well as among the Turkmen of Gorgan and Gonbad. The instrument remains the same but its dimensions and the number of its ligatures vary slightly from region to region. Two types of wood are used in the fabrication of the dotar.

The pear-shaped body is carved out of a single block of mulberry wood. Its neck is made of either the wood of the apricot or the walnut tree. It has two steel strings, which in the past were made of silk or animal entrails. The dotar is tuned in fourth or fifth intervals.

Kamanche

The kamanche is a bowed spike fiddle. The instrument has four metal strings, and the body consists of a wooden hemisphere coverred with thin sheepskin membrane. Oddly, the instrument’s bridge runs diagonally across this membrane. The instrument is highly ornate and is about the size of a viola. The tuning varies depending upon the region of the country where it is being played. In Tehran, the kamanche is tuned in the same manner as a violin: G, D, A, E. It is suspected that the fourth string was added in the early twentieth century as the result of the introduction of western violin to Iran. The kamancheh has been painted in Persian antique paintings.

Nay

The ney that is the Persian knotgrass reed, has five finger holes in front and one thumbhole in the back. The ney has a range of two and a half octaves. The upper end is covered by a short brass cylinder, which is anchored in the tiny space between the upper incisive of the player. Sound is produced when a stream of air is directed by the tongue toward the opening of the instrument. In this way, sound is produced behind the upper teeth, inside the mouth, which gives the ney a distinct timbre than that of the sound produced by the lips on the outside of the mouth.

Santur

The santur is a struck zither in the form of a shallow, regular trapezoidal box. There are several sound posts inside the box, and two small rosettes on the top panel which help to amplify the sound. The santur has 72 strings, arranged in groups of four, i.e. each of four closely spaced strings are tuned to the same pitch. Each group of four strings is supported by a small,movable, wooden bridge; the bridges are positioned to give the instrument a range of three octaves.

The santoor can be made from various kinds of wood (walnut, rosewood, betel palm, etc.) depending on the desired sound quality. The front and the back of the instrument are connected by sound posts whose positions play an important role in the sound quality of the instrument. Although the santoor is very old, it was neither depicted in miniatures, nor presented in any other medium until the nineteenth century. The secret of making the trapezoid-shape sound box lies in the quality and age of the wood, as well as in the arrangement of the sound posts which connect the table of the instrument to its back. Santoor is played in India, Iraq, Egypt and some other countries.

Setar

The ancestry of the setar can be traced to the ancient tanbur of pre-Islamic Persia. It is made from thin mulberry wood and its fingerboard has twenty-five or twenty-six adjustable gut frets. Setar is literally translated as “three strings”; however, in its present form, it has four strings and it is suspected that setar initially had only three strings. Because of its delicacy and intimate sonority, the setar is the preferred instrument of Sufi mystics.

Two of the strings are made of steel, two are of brass, and they are tuned to c, c semi-sharp, g, and c semi-sharp, respectively. The average setar is 85 cm long, 20 cm wide, and has a 15 cm deep gourd, and is made entirely of wood. (Unlike the tar which has a membrane streched across the body.) Also, unlike the tar, the player plucks the strings with the nail of the index finger, instead of using a plectrum. It is believed that setar is the ancestor of the Indian sitar.

Tar

Tar is a plucked stringed instrument (a long-necked lute) that is played in Iran (Persia), Caucasian countries (like Azerbaijan, Armenia and so on) and central Asia (like Tajikistan). It exists in two forms now, the Persian (that is named Tar-e-Shiraaz or Irani) and Caucasian (that is named Tar-e-Ghafghaaz). The Persian tar is carved from a block of mulberry wood and has a deep, curved body with two bulges shaped like a figure 8. The upper surface is shaped like two hearts of different sizes, joined at the points. The sound box consists of two parts. The small part is called Naghaareh and the large part is called Kaasseh (that means bowl (sound box)). The sound box is covered with lambskin. On the lower skin, a horn bridge supports six metal strings in three courses. The long fingerboard has twenty-two to twenty-eight movable gut frets. The strings are plucked with a brass plectrum coated on one side in wax. Its range is about two and a half octaves. The tunings of the strings are changed according to the dastgah that is being played, and the twenty six frets are movable. Finally, the strings are plucked with a plectrum.

Tonbak

The most popular percussion instrument in Persian music today is a goblet drum known as the Tonbak. The Tonbak is a large wooden instrument with a goatskin head. Unlike other goblet drums, this drum has a much more squared-off shape and produces lower-pitched and softer tones due to its size and skin being put on with less tension. Other names for this drum are Donbak, Tombak, Dombak, Tompak and Zarb. Maybe the name Zarb has its origins in the Arabic word darb, meaning to strike, as mentioned above. The other names have a more interesting origin. The two main strokes played on this drum are known as Ton, for a bass tone played in the center of the drum head, and Bak, for a treble tone played on or near the rim. Combining the terms results in the name Ton-Bak. It is highly likely that the American name Dumbek is derived from one of the Persian names.

Barbat (UD, OUD)

The barbat, in Arabic courtiers and Iran known as the ud, is a short-necked fretless lute with five double-courses of strings and traditionally played with an eagle’s quill. The barbat is the ancestor of the European lute, and functions as a bass instrument. The barbat is the ancestor of the Chinese pipa too. The pipa brought to Japan and was named biwa.

Ghanoon

The ghanoon is the Persian zither. It is a flat trapezoidal wooden box, with twenty-four strings in triple fastened at its rectangular side on one end and to pegs on the oblique side on the other. The player to make slight changes in pitch manipulates small levels lying below each course of strings. The strings are plucked with two horn plectra, one on each index finger.

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Firouzeh Mirrazavi: The traditional music of Iran is a message, a call from the artist’s innermost consciousness. Deeply intertwined with Iran’s age-old history and culture, it is an expression of the joys, loves, sorrows, efforts and struggles, all the many victories and defeats that the peoples of Western Asia have experienced over the millennia. It is something of a miracle that these people have kept their music intact despite numerous, murderous foreign invasions – in fact, imposing their own art, lifestyle and generous view of the world on their invaders.

Persian traditional music or Persian/Iranian classical music is the traditional and indigenous music of Iran and Persian-speaking countries, the science and art of music, the sound and performance of music (Sakata 1983).

Origins

Archeological evidence reveals musical instruments that were used in Iran during the Elamite era around 800BCE. Not much is known about Persian music in the ancient world, especially about the music of the Achaemenid Empire. Alexander the Great is said to have witnessed many melodies and instruments upon his invasion, and music played an important role in religious affairs. Music played an important role in the courts of Sassanid kings in the much later Sassanid Empire. Of this period, we know the names of various court musicians like Barbad and the types of various instruments that were used like harps, lutes, flutes, bagpipes and others. Under Sassanid rule, modal music was developed by a highly significant court musician, Barbad, called the khosravani. While today’s classical music tradition in Iran bears the same names of some of the modes of that era it is impossible to know if they sound the same because there is no evidence of musical notation from the Sassanid period. Today’s traditional Persian music began to develop after the advent of Islam in Iran, in the Medieval era and the creation of today’s formal, classical music tradition is directly linked to the music systems of the Safavid Dynasty. Under the later Qajar Dynasty, the classical system was restructured into its present form.

Before Islam

Under the Achaemenids (550-320 BCE), music served an important function in worship as well as in courtly entertainment. Bas-reliefs from the period clearly depict groups of singers, players of trigonal harps (chang), accompanied by large tambourines, as well as long necked lutes and double-flutes. The first written evidence of Persian music is from the Sassanid Period (226-643 CE). Khosrau II was a great patron of music, and his most famous court musician, Barbod, was said to have developed a musical system with seven modal structures (known as the Royal Modes), thirty derivative modes, and 365 melodies, associated with the days of the week, month and year.

The Arrival of Islam

With the advent of Islam in the 7th century A.D., Persian music, as well as other Persian cultural elements, became a formative element in what has since become “Islamic civilization”. Persian musicians and musicologists overwhelmingly dominated the musical life of the Eastern Islamic Empire. Baghdad became the centre of Persian music, and many musicians who were once considered to be Arabs are actually now known to have been Iranians. Farabi (d. 950), Ibn Sina (d. 1037), Razi (d. 1209), Ormavi (d. 1294), Zalzal (d.791), Ziryab, and Maraqhe-e (d. 1432) are a few of the many outstanding Persian musical scholars of the early Islamic period.

The 13th Century – Theory and Synthesis

In the 13 century, Arab-Persian music theory became largely standardized into what became as the Systematist or Iraqi school (since it developed in the court of Baghdad). The pioneer of this school was Safi Al Din Ormavi (from northwestern Iran) who provided a theoretical synthesis of the many systems of intervals and scales proposed before his time. He divided the octave into seventeen notes, giving each note a name. Various juxtapositions of these notes formed the basis of twenty named modes or maqamat, which to this day provide the theoretical basis for all different kinds of Middle Eastern music.

The Mongol Invasion

The Mongol invasion of Persia (from 1220), drastically changed the socio-political environment of the region. During this period, Shiite theology became established, and Sufism became erfan (gnosis) and penetrated deep into Persian lyrical poetry. The musical style of Araq (western Iran) gradually adopted the structure and emotional language of ghazal (a form of Persian poetry) and poetry became the main source of avaz (vocal section). During the 16th to 17th centuries, Persian music began to follow its own course and diverged from that of its Arabic, Turkish, and Tajik neighbors.

The Safavid Period

With the rise of the Safavid dynasty at the end of the fifteen century, and the increasing influence of Shiism, music in Persia declined. The court still patronized musicians, but their art became subject to the authority of Shiite clerics, who viewed it with suspicion. Musical performance was given over to illiterate ‘labourers of pleasure’. The brilliance of the Persian tradition passed to India, where the ruling Moguls were Turco-Mongols, deeply influenced by Persian court culture. In Iran, musical traditions were kept alive by Sufis and performers of taziye (Shiite passion plays).

Revival and Western Influence

The 19th century Qajar King Nasser al-Din Shah was a great patron of music. He sponsored many great musicians, among them Mirza Abdollah Farahani who collated and organised the traditions of Persian music to form the basis of contemporary Persian traditional music known as radif. In 1862, a process of Westernization began when, Nasser al-Din Shah ordered the establishment of a military band, such as he had seen in Europe playing overtures, marches, polka, and waltzes. A French musician, Alfred Lemair, was hired to run a traditional ensemble of indigenous shawms, horns, trumpets, and percussion into a Western concert band.

He was so successful that by the end of the 19th century, the music school in Tehran taught Western instruments and music theory.

Westernization gathered pace with the accession of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925. The Tehran music school (now a fully-fledged conservatoire) and the National School of Music were both state funded, and, in the late 1930s, a small symphony orchestra was founded. Iranian composers began to study abroad, and to compose in nationalist and modernist styles. By the 1970s, the Tehran Symphony Orchestra consisted of 100 players, and newly built concert halls were hosting international artists; music departments were instituted in universities, and television introduced Western music to the people. Pop, rock, jazz, and Latin American music gained popularity, and in their wake, the record and cassette industry marketed local pop music and hybrid love-songs that blended Persian modes with Western harmony.

Records and radio, and exposure to Western light music stimulated Persian music in its popular form. The traditional tasnif was reinterpreted in popular ballads, composed in Persian modes, but following the structure of Western songs. Often, the harmonic underlay was a mixture of traditional and Western instruments. In this form, it was commonly known as tarane – a 3-4 minute long song which was suited to the 78 rpm record. Traditional dastgah performances were similarly reduced in length, fewer modes were used in performance, and many were eliminated.

Musiqi-e assil became a more common past-time for the next few decades, especially after cassettes were introduced in the 1960s. Before the 1979 revolution, Iran produced the Classic / Dastgahi singing stars Gholam Hossein Banan, Delkash, Marzeyeh, Hengameh Akhavan, Akbar Golpayegani(Golpa), Elahe, Parisa, Khonsari, Homayra, Mahasti, Iraj, Hooshamnd Aghili and instrumentalists like majid kiani , Abolhasan Saba, Asghar Bahari, Ahmad Ebadi, Hossein Tehrani, Faramarz Payvar, Ali Tadjvidi, Dariush Talai, Muhammad Heidari and Hassan Kassai.

The Islamic Revolution to the Present

Many young Iranians have become interested in traditional music and the ban on Western music and even pop music has now been lifted. Today, music is taught in state-funded universities and many private institutions and classes throughout the country. Many Iranians play musical instruments, and the social standing of musicians is now much higher than in the past.

The years after the 1979 revolution emerged Islamic Republic approved stars like Parviz Meshkatian, Arshad Tahmasebi, Davod Ganjeyi, Jamshid Andalibi, Kayhan Kalhor, Mohammad Reza Lotfi, Hossein Alizadeh, Dariush Talai, Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, and Shahram Nazeri.

Most notable living Iranian classical vocalists are: Shajarian, Shahram Nazeri,Parissa, Akbar Golpa, Iraj. Among relatively new classical vocalists we can name: Homay, Hesamuddin Seraj, Salar Aghili, Alireza Ghorbani, Homayoun Shajarian, Hamid Reza Nourbakhsh and Maryam Akhondy.

More notable Iranian progressive musicians whom at their own time have created modern and contemporary Persian classical based theories and styles include the late Ostad Parviz Yahaghi, the late Ostad Asadollah Malek, the late Ostad Mohammad Baharloo, the late Ostad Alinaghi Vaziri, the late Ostad Varzandeh, the late Ostad Hossein Tehrani, Ostad Faramarz Payvar and Ostad Bahman Rajabi whom have impacted and influenced the classical Iranian traditions with their respective innovative musical approaches.

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Isfahan is a large city located almost in the center of today’s Iran where the main north-south and east-west roads cross (see location in Google Map). It is estimated that the Isfahan metropolitan area has a population of about 4,000,000, making it the second most populous metropolitan area in Iran after the capital Tehran

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@motiheidari who is active instageramer with 92.3k followers publish this photo.

The photo taken forms many foreign tourists who passed the road by car.

@motiheidari and his master in Imamzade Saleh in north of Tehran.

@motiheidari  with the 9 french social masters in Zurkhaneh club. the Zurkhaneh is the first sport club in history.

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