Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies by Barbara Slavin

Author:Barbara Slavin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2007-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

Mountain Retreat

Geography has given Tehran’s youth an escape hatch in the arc of mountains ringing the capital from northeast to west. In the winter the slopes are snow-covered and majestic, and the air is unpolluted and crisp. Religious vigilantes tend to stay away or relax their standards, and Iranian young people get to act their age, throwing snowballs at each other and sitting together in cafés drinking tea and inhaling fruit-flavored tobacco through gurgling water pipes. There are several ski resorts that I was told were rather good, although as a nonskier, I passed on boarding the creaky cable cars that took people to the slopes. I preferred trudging up the steps cut into the rocky paths in one section called Darband, stopping at open-air restaurants, and eating shish kebab while admiring the mountain views. On the road to another popular resort called Tochal, an enterprising Iranian had set up a paintball range and a bungee-jumping ride for kids that proudly displayed the label of its manufacturer, Aspen Creations. Said Rahimi, a young engineer I met at Tochal, told me he couldn’t afford the twenty-three dollars fee to go skiing but that the walking renewed his spirits. “You have several things to do on the weekend in America but in Iran, it’s limited,” he said apologetically.

The mountains are usually a safe place to do interviews without attracting undue attention from the authorities; Iranians seem to imbibe a bit of bravery along with the clean air. In December 2001, Iranian youngsters were particularly audacious. Khatami had just been reelected president and there was a wave of sympathy for Americans following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Young men and women had poured into the streets of Tehran in a spontaneous show of support for the United States, and then demonstrated again, more violently, following the loss by Iran’s soccer team to Bahrain in a World Cup qualifying match. Three teenagers I met a few weeks later in the mountains had taken part in the soccer riots, and one had spent two weeks in jail. “I would do it again,” this youngster told me in Farsi, adding for emphasis in English: “I don’t give a shit.” He and his companions were decked out like punk rockers, all in denim, and their hair was stiff with gel. One of them wore a long fake gold chain that swung from his jeans pocket below his knees. “There is no place to go, not even a nightclub,” said the boy, a nineteen-year-old named Payman. “Our fathers tell us about what it used to be like in this country. Now we have to rely on our fathers for money, and a car is a young man’s dream.” One of his companions, Farshid, also nineteen, said, “This is the most free place we have, and even here we’re a bit scared. We are miserable people compared to other countries.”

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