Couchsurfing in Iran Read online

  Early in the morning of the New Year celebrations, the gray giant of Tehran is still sleeping. Hardly any traffic, okay views. Behind the Milad Tower, the mountains can be seen as soon as the first light hits them, and there’s plenty of snow up there.

  In such a slumbering city, whose stores are still shuttered and whose inhabitants are still at home, the first things that catch your eye are the signs. Billboards, signposts, logos. The Persian lettering, with its decorative lines and squiggles, is still unfamiliar. The figure with the highest recognition factor is the “5” as it looks like an upside-down heart.

  A barbershop seems to be only able to do eight different styles, at least according to the paintings above the entrance. The ad for a supermarket is less realistic; it depicts a customer and a shopping cart with a single giant apple in it, as big as a medicine ball.

  A few feet farther on there is an auto trader shop with a Mercedes star on its facade. It sells Peugeot and Hyundai and Saipa, Iran’s own auto brand, but no Mercedes.

  There seems to be a disproportionate number of banks in Tehran: Sepah Bank, Pasargad Bank, Samen Credit Institution, Saderat Bank, Melli Bank. There’s no point searching for international banking concerns, as a couple years ago UBS, Credit Suisse, and HSBC all withdrew from Iran.

  It’s still too early to text my host for tonight, so I get out of the cab near the old American Embassy and take a stroll. On both sides of the street there are rows of apartment blocks that look like oversized shoe boxes. Tehran is hiding. From the sidewalk, walls and iron grilles hide the forecourts, windows are made of frosted or reflecting glass, and the curtains are closed to protect against prying eyes.

  I walk for ten minutes, not finding a single window to enable me to glimpse the slightest detail of a living room or kitchen. Iran’s apartments are the refuges of people with something to hide, strongholds against the outside world. For only when walls surround you can you be free—one of the many paradoxes in the ayatollah’s realm.

  My trip is a search for the great and small liberties of the Iranians. I’m looking to draw out the mysteries of the country and discover what happens behind the blank windows and closed doors. My ticket to accomplish this I find on online portals like Couchsurfing, Hospitality Club, or BeWelcome, where people offer accommodation to travelers. In Iran there are already more than 160,000 members on Couchsurfing, and the trend is growing rapidly. And all this despite the threat of difficulties with the police for housing foreigners.

  The travel guidelines issued by the State Department state: “Iranians are encouraged to have no contact with foreigners ‘over and above normal requirements.’” In isolated cases Germans who had organized their accommodation through social networks on the Internet were investigated by the Iranian authorities and promptly deported. “Furthermore: visitors staying overnight with Iranian individuals or families whose addresses have not been registered on the visa application form or at the point of entry must reckon with confiscation of passport and legal procedures.”

  Before my departure I contacted roughly fifty couchsurfers and a few others I had met during my first trip to Iran a year ago. Most of them replied promptly and gave me their cell phone numbers so that I could contact them en route. I didn’t mention any of them on my visa application because so much private contact would have aroused suspicion. One of my acquaintances was refused a visa because he gave the Tehran address of his Iranian friend as his contact address. A few years before, he had had no problems traveling there when he had only entered hotel addresses in tourist locations on his application form.

  Two months in a rogue nation, a summer jaunt to the “axis of evil,” a vacation in a dictatorship. I don’t plan to cross the country from east to west or north to south or to allow myself to be governed by the guidebook tips and must-see tourist attractions. Where I go depends on people. I have planned a rough route, but I am prepared to ditch it at any time if the Iranians have better suggestions. And if they have worse ideas, I will still join in. When in Qom, do as the Qomans do. Or something like that.

  My travel destination is assimilation. Within the next few weeks I want to morph from a blond Westerner to an Iranian—well, at least to a certain extent. The to-do list is: 1. Unveil mysteries. 2. Become an Iranian. 3. Get out alive.

  To: Yasmin Tehran

  Hey Yasmin, how are you, my dear? This is my iranian number. When can I come to your place?

  To: Masoud Kish

  Hey Masoud, this is Stephan from cs, how are you? I will arrive on Kish in a few days, could you host me for 1 or 2 nights? Would be great!:)

  DOWN WITH THE U.S.

  BREAKFAST TIME. I go to the first convenient café, where a few laborers from a construction site are sitting. There is only one meal on the menu, a fatty soup with calf’s brain. Tender meat is usually something delicate, but this is just a bit too tender for my tastes. Lesson of the day: 8:30 isn’t a good time for food experiments. But everyone else seems to like it. Evidence that the assimilation that I am seeking is as distant as Isfahan is from Illinois. This also applies to the language. Apart from “hello,” “bye,” “tea,” and “thanks,” I can say almani, meaning “German,” and Man farsi balad nistam—”I don’t speak Persian.” The last sentence I apparently pronounce so well that the brain soup restaurant owner doesn’t believe me and proceeds to fire off a wide-ranging barrage of small talk. The conversation remains one-sided and eventually he accepts that I’ve understood nothing.

  People staying in hotels can simply check in at any time. For someone staying in a private apartment the situation is more complicated. You have to adjust to when your host is at home; you have to synchronize with the daily patterns. As I booked my flight on very short notice, I couldn’t fix a time to meet Yasmin. Contact me when you have landed, she posted on Facebook. Until I receive a reply to my text message, I’m a homeless person with heavy luggage.

  The neighborhood is well known for its propaganda art. DOWN WITH USA is written in screaming capitals on a wall near the former American Embassy. A couple feet away there is a mural of the Statue of Liberty with the glittering silver spiky crown perched on a skull. Next to it is a picture of the Capitol Building, with Israel’s flag flying above the cupola. I knew about this graffiti from reports about Iran; they are popular subjects for typifying Tehran. Most of these reports are about religious fanatics, plans to build an atomic bomb, and hate-filled tirades against America or Israel. In the rankings of countries with the worst image, Iran has been striving for the World Cup title for years.

  “Welcome to Iran,” I hear a voice next to me say. The stranger in the suit doesn’t seem to fit the murals—he really means it.

  A quick call to Yasmin; she doesn’t answer. I walk to the House of the Artists, just a few blocks away. According to the guidebook it is a good place to get in contact with local artists, and those are not the ones who paint the walls with anti-American slogans. Unfortunately, the museum is closed for the New Year celebrations, as is the adjoining café. I find a bench in the park, lean my backpack against it, and doze off.

  From: Yasmin Tehran

  Hi, i told you no problem with time, always welcome

  She answers my text message in the afternoon, and I take a cab to the southern Eskandari Street. We shake hands. She is wearing a black top with a glittery silver Eiffel Tower motif and a baseball cap on top of her veil.

  “How are you? Anything new?” she asks. I got to know Yasmin during my first Iran trip a year ago.

  We turn into a small side street, go through a squeaking iron door into the forecourt, where two white Saipas are parked, then up the concrete staircase to the first story. I take my shoes off, hug Yasmin’s mother, hand over the box of marzipan, and put the luggage into my room. I know where everything is from my last visit.

  Her mother is wearing a string top and no veil. As soon as the door is closed, Yasmin, despite having a male visitor, takes off her veil, revealing short dyed blond hair.

  According to the o
fficial government figures, 99 per cent of Iranians are Muslims, but Yasmin’s family is not religious. At home she doesn’t have to behave as if there is a thick curtain at the living room window, excluding both light and curious gazes. I’m offered hot tea, nuts, and Chichak chocolate bars, with a wrapper closely resembling a Snickers. I feel at home. The Iranians are masters at making visitors feel as comfortable as possible.

  The TV is broadcasting a speech by the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The most powerful figure in the country is waving around his cue card, hollering into two microphones about how the Iranians shouldn’t kowtow to the Americans, the Yanks are stealing oil, something has to be done about it. Instead of using his cue card, he could just as well have read out the messages on the walls of the former U.S. Embassy. Without Ayatollah Khomeini next to him, he actually seems to be ever so slightly charismatic. But only ever so slightly.

  “There’s always a speech like this on Fridays,” says Yasmin.

  “Today’s Thursday.”

  “It’s a repeat, so that we all remember that tomorrow we will get the same speech with different words.” And then to her mother: “Hey, come on, switch channels.”

  Her mother obeys. First she switches to a program about the correct way to arrange roses and then to a music channel playing “G.U.Y” by Lady Gaga. The singer’s dress is white, but so scant that “color of innocence” is not what comes to mind. I ask Yasmin why Iranians hate the U.S.

  “Not the Iranians—the government,” she replies. “Many young people dream of emigrating to America because it’s a free country. However, some people believe that the CIA secretly determines Iran’s future, as it has already done repeatedly in the past. During the presidential elections, time and again, rumors abound about America manipulating the results.”

  “Then they did a pretty good job this time,” I quip.

  During my last trip Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom a German newspaper dubbed the “Madman of Tehran,” was president. Now the moderate Hassan Rouhani has been in office for several months. In the background, Ayatollah Khamenei continues to pull the strings—a point that is often forgotten because he is rarely present on the international stage.

  “Why do all Europeans think Rouhani is so great?” asks Yasmin.

  “Because he’s a good speaker and seems pretty reasonable. At least compared to his crazy predecessor, who was quite capable of shooting himself in the foot at every UN General Assembly. You’re not convinced by him?”

  “Nothing much has changed in the last year. The moral police are still active, prices rise, and the relationship to America hasn’t improved.”

  “But there have been diplomatic breakthroughs—the sanctions have been relaxed, and for the first time in thirty-five years the Iranian and American leaders have been in telephone contact.”

  “There’s been much talk and little action. Rouhani comes from the same clerical stock as Khomeini and Khamenei. He just pretends to be more modern and liberal. He is a master of fine words, but apart from that, he’s achieved precious little,” she answers.

  Yasmin is thirty-one, a touch chubby, paints ladybugs on her nails, and can alternate between talking seriously and exploding into laughter within a split second. She longs for the trade restrictions to be lifted. Since Iran was barred from the SWIFT financial network in March 2012, the country has been practically cut off from international money transactions. And there have been less foreign imports, including essential medications, since then.

  “I have a bone disease and am dependent on medication that isn’t available here. I hope that next year I can get a grant to study for my doctoral thesis in Germany. I just want to get out of this country.”

  She has completed her studies as a software engineer and is now working on her master’s thesis in tourism management. Her main topic is the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq War and the stream of visitors there. Every year, millions of Iranians travel to the memorials. Her father could probably help her with the subject, as he was a naval officer. Just now he is on a trip to southwest Iran with a few other war veterans, visiting places where they fought.

  I have to get on the Internet to write to a couple prospective hosts and to book a flight to Kish Island. The computer is in the room that is mine for the next couple days—two beds with floral bedspreads, a wooden closet, a chest of drawers crammed to the top with all sorts of odds and ends, no window. Normally, this is Yasmin’s room, but she has moved into her mother’s room.

  Yasmin closes the Facebook tab on her browser. Officially, the website is banned in Iran. Still, I have never met an Iranian under thirty-five who isn’t on Facebook; they use proxy servers to access it. Yasmin helps me with the flight arrangements; domestic flights are not easy to book.

  “Do you want to pay less and fly with a Fokker or pay more for a Boeing?” she asks.

  “A Fokker is okay,” I answer.

  As you read Persian from right to left, it seems to me that the times on the flight website are the wrong way around. The Fokker flight on Sunday, for instance, appears to depart at 15:10 and arrive at 13:15. She reserves a ticket for me that I can collect the day after tomorrow at the travel center.

  “Do you want to visit a couple battlefields during your stay? We could go there together. In three weeks,” suggests Yasmin. The first day, the first change in plans. I accept the proposal immediately.

  Her mother rolls out a plastic sheet, also with a floral design, on the living room carpet and places on it bowls with small meatballs and potatoes together with pita bread and dugh, a sour milk drink similar to Turkish ayran.

  “Do you remember this? At last year’s New Year celebration you spilled it all over your T-shirt,” says Yasmin grinning.

  How to behave while eating

  •Sit cross-legged on the floor.

  •Wait for the starting orders: “Bokhor, bokhor!”

  •Tear off a rectangular piece of the pita bread.

  •Fill it with the main course and roll it up.

  •Bite into it.

  •Try to surreptitiously pick up bits of food that have landed on the carpet (they never land on the plastic sheet).

  • • • • • • • • •

  THE TV IS on nonstop, and now there is a report about a bus of battleground pilgrims driving over a mine and exploding in the area that Yasmin’s father is now visiting. She is worried about him because he hasn’t been in touch since this morning and isn’t taking calls.

  “How can a bus drive over a twenty-five-year-old mine? Haven’t the roads been cleared of the things for years?” I inquire.

  “The bus hit a car and veered off the road, triggering a land mine from the war. Incredibly unlucky.”

  Yasmin’s mother is understandably not enthusiastic about our plan. She tries for the umpteenth time to reach her husband without success. “It’s pretty out of the way. Reception is sure to be bad,” she says.

  Yasmin changes the topic.

  “Do you want to join me on Sunday for a very special meeting? Something absolutely forbidden?”

  “Sure, what’s it all about?”

  “A special kind of relationship.”

  “How special?”

  “Very special.”

  “A more precise description would be helpful.”

  “Have you heard about BDSM? Bondage games? Sadomasochism? It’s hard to imagine anything more forbidden in Iran. We meet in a park. Slaves, masters, and a dominatrix.”

  “Aha.”

  “I knew that you wouldn’t say no!”

  LONG LIVE THE SHAH

  BUT FIRST OF all some history lessons are on the program. The next day we visit the National Museum of Iran, which is considered by those in the know to be the mother of all museums, at least that is what is written on a poster on the outer wall. The exhibits are in fact sensational. Who knew that the Persians turned out the first cartoon in the world, with emphasis on turned? It is on a round earthen goblet depicting an ibex jumping toward a tree and eating
its leaves. The picture consists of five individual images, and if you turn the goblet quickly enough it gives the impression of animation, somewhat similar to a flip-book.

  At the Academy Awards in 2300 BC Ibex Eats Leaves would have racked up the Oscars in all categories: screenplay, director, visual effects, score (the sound of clay rubbing on a sandy surface), and best supporting role (the tree). Unfortunately, there were no Oscars then. Cultural events in Germany at that time? A couple long-haired cave dwellers spinning old hunter yarns at the fireside. Cultural events in America at that time? Well, you get the picture. A feast for cineasts is also the sculptured throne scene from the Achaemenid era depicting King Darius and his son Xerxes. Both have sensational beards and are holding lotus blossoms. Light-headed from the fumes of two incense burners, they receive representatives from a distant province. When the stone relief was chiseled out at around 500 BC, Persia was the first superpower in history, with an empire ranging from India to the Danube. Today’s countries of Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan, and Afghanistan all belonged to Darius’s gigantic empire. A network of roads was created stretching thousands of miles, with countless caravanserai for travelers. And the first postal system in history.

  However, in the subsequent centuries, you had to be careful when deciding on domestic or international rates. Time and again the borders shifted due to various wars, various battles, and various conquerors. First, there was Alexander the Great. Then the Parthians, and the Sasanians, followed by the Arabs, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, the Safawids. Good shahs and bad shahs, and finally, in the twentieth century, the shahs of the Pahlavi dynasty, eventually leading to the revolution with ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei. Already in 1979, when the mullahs came to power, Persia, on the way from global empire to religious dictatorship, had suffered more at the hands of unscrupulous tyrants than most other nations.