BANDAR_E ANZALI

Situation and Access: Region of Gilan. Large port on the Caspian Sea. Altitude - 20 meters. 380 km N-W of Tehran via Quazvin and Rasht, on a very good road or 430 km via Chalus on a good twisting road.

"The Anzali Lagoon, Gilan Province"

Bandar_e Anzali is known to be the World Capital of Percious Caviar. The preparation and marketing of the precious black eggs is a state monopoly, handled through "The Iranian Fishing Company" coming under the Finance Ministry, the public is not admitted to the immense refrigerated hangars where tons of sturgeons, monsters between 2 and 3 meters long weighing between 75 and 100 kilograms are stored after removal of caviar usually equivalent to about one tenth of their weight.

"Tea Plants fields, Gilan Province"

You drive your car across the beach, which shows that the sand there is hard and pure. In a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere its inhabitants and seamen on shore-leave stroll during the evenings and during the whole of Friday in the public garden which follows the coast road on the right bank of the channel linking Anzali Lake to the sea. When you become tired of walking, you sit down on a small wooden stool, have a cup of burning-hot tea(chai) and nibble pounds of pistachios while watching the boatmen wielding with calculated slowness the oars of their gaily colored craft.

"The foothills of Daylaman, Gilan Province"

For the foreign visitor, the hinterland, even more than the beach, constitutes an astonishing discovery. Upstream from the Lushan Dam the landscape changes. The vegetation, crops, houses and people are suddenly different from what one sees on the Iranian plateau. The countryside is covered with greenery. Real trees surrond houses no longer made of brick, but of wood with thatched roofs. There are hundreds of these small houses with balconies, flanked by barns or granges on pile columns and scattered on the slopes of the valleys or on hillocks on the plain.

"The villagers women of Talesh"