Yazd is a Puzzle.

She sits dead centre in Iran. A city of a half a million people, inhabited for 7000 years. But in a desert, with not a river in sight!

Why! Why? Why, here in the glaring white of a desert? Why not, faraway there, along the green and blue hues of a river!

A Puzzle! But as the desert dust settles, she bares herself. Unhurriedly! One piece at a time falls, each simple and elegant. Her four pieces fit flawlessly; EARTH, WIND, WATER and FIRE!

EARTH

Yazd rises, not like a Phoenix, but like a belch from the desert. “Oops, excuse me” she says. A long, slow burp of buildings; all in the colour of the EARTH she stands on.

She is made entirely of EARTH and organic materials. Mud-brick. It also goes by names of rammed earth, cob, adobe! Rectangular bricks, small enough to dry quickly without cracking, hold together with a plaster of mud. And thick walls, small windows and inner courtyards keep her cool. An entire city made of EARTH, with only a few recent exceptions.

WIND

But wait, there is more! Everywhere, across Yazd, towers pop up and out. Not just the elegant spires, in praise of Allah. But the top-heavy towers, with featureless slits, to catch the WIND. Badgirs, WIND-catchers, a Persian invention, are the world’s first air conditioners! They catch cold WIND and dispel hot WIND in four, six, and eight directions. Their shafts catch the lightest breeze; their shelves hold onto hot air and their flaps direct circulation. Yes, WIND-catchers mark all her EARTH coloured buildings of import.

WATER

And they rarely stand alone. WIND-catchers circle domes. And domes hide the WATER reservoirs beneath them. Yes, out-of-sight, the WATER-y underworld of Yazd slithers and snakes with shafts and qanats and reservoirs and canals and sluice gates and pools and clay pots and jugs. And the first, amongst these equals, is the Qanat. The underground water channel; another Persian invention! This one works water since 1000 B.C. Qanat workers bleed water tables in faraway higher mountains. And their qanats escort this water, inch by slow inch with gravity. Drop by lazy drop, to reservoirs in Yazd. She has about 70 qanats, one as long as 120 km. And our Yazd still relies on many of them.

Yes, Yazd lets slip her first three pieces! EARTH, WIND and WATER! And Yazd is as CooL as can be. Together, they keep the basements of her houses just above freezing. In a desert!

Three pieces; the know-HOW pieces. But, we still do not know-WHY? For heaven’s sake, WHY in this deadly desert?

Then Yazd reveals her last piece …

FIRE

Yes, Zayd has this too! A fire burns still, for 1548 years; since 470 AD. We see it flicker and flame in Yazd. Her Fire Temple!

It is Zoroastrians that diligently feed this fire, every day. They have no symbol or icon, but they have fire. And FIRE burns in their Fire Temples. And nowhere more attentively than in Yazd! There are only 150,000 Zoroastrians left in the world, but 4,000 of them are in Yazd. And Yazd burns brightly!

A legend tells of a Zoroastrian princess that flees the Arab invasion in 637 AD. She and her followers have nothing, not even water. And near Yazd, at Chak Chak, in desperation she throws her staff at a cliff and … water begins to drip, drip. Then and there, she and her followers feel FIRE in their bellies. They begin to imagine a new reality! They dream of Yazd, a home in the desert, free of persecution. As desert dwellers before them, and the Silk Road governors after them, YAZD burns brightly in their mind’s eye.

And the know-HOW pieces, Earth, Wind and Water … follow … FIRE.

There, the puzzle that is Yazd, complete and perfect.

Simply Beautiful.

It is desert all the way to Yazd.

We stop here and there to walk around old crumbling caravanserias like this …

… and are surprised to find some families still living here.

And this 1800 year old citadel at Meybod, with a small village still existing in and around it.

But otherwise it is all desert, desert ….

… desert that surrounds ….

…. Yazd… a city of half a million people … built almost entirely of earth and organic materials, except for the more recent, far outskirts of the city …

…. all built of earth and organic materials … spot the tall badgirs, wind-catchers in the foreground.

Yes, sun baked mud bricks and mud plaster have stood the test of time … just ask this cowboy.

The earthen alleyways are still alive with bikes and people …

The alleyways are great fun to ride …

… and the GPS computes perfectly …


And of course, playing fields are sand pits.

Yes, there are beautiful minarets and mosques like this and ….

… and this …

… but nothing jumps out like the Badgir, the wind-catcher. Here 6 wind-catchers circle two domes.

And here 4 wind-catchers circle a single dome.

And beneath that dome lies a water reservoir.

This stairway leads down to a 9th century reservoir in the centre of Yazd. This used to be for general public use and ladies would come down with their pitchers to collect water ….

… but today it is empty and only tourists like myself come down to ponder ….

… it is beautifully cool and I gaze up to the top and imagine the 4 high wind catchers above it.

This water has been brought to Yazd by the efforts of these Qanat workers ….

… and their Qanats, the underground water channels they chipped away at, to bring water to the reservoirs of Yazd.

This diagramme illustrates the workings of a Qanat nicely.

And this diagrammes shows the genuis marriage of the Badgir, from above, and Qanat from below.

This museum, the home of a famous merchant, built in 1888, illustrates Qanats and Badgirs beautifully. It has only this storey and a rooftop above ground, with 3 storeys below.

The bottom storey, 3 storeys below ground, receives the branch of the Qanat and its water.

This stairway leads to the 2nd storey below ground …

… which holds a pool of water, that is fanned by air from the wind-catchers. It is really chilly. Food stuffs are kept here … see the vegetable rack suspended above.

The 1st storey below ground has a perfectly comfortable temperature and water jugs at the ready …

… and holds interconnected rooms for family members.

The ground floor has a beautiful entrance to welcome guests on the one side … and a kitchen and servant quarters to the other side.

And here is the Fire Temple at Yazd ….

… with a Fire that has burnt continuously since 470 A.D. That is for 1548 years …

… thanks to the daily efforts of Zoroastarian priests. Zoroastrians date back to 1250 B.C and believe good and evil coexists in all living things.

The Zoroastarian Symbol … wings imply good thoughts, words, deeds will help us soar … the sinker below implies bad thoughts, words, deeds will hamper our progress in the universe.

And here is the Shrine at Chak Chak. This is where the fleeing Zoroastarian princess, in desperation, throws her staff at the cliff and it starts to drip, drip.

We climb to the top and after we look down …

… enter the shrine to find Zoroastrians praying before fire.

Zoroastarian ladies are known for their bold colours … and …

… here we splash each other with the water that still chak chaks, drip drips …

… brought to us by the Zoroastarian princess that fled here in 637 A.D.