The wave of anti-government protests in Iran at the end of December began in one of the country’s conservative strongholds: its second city, Mashhad. Site of the huge Imam Reza shrine that draws more than 20 million Shia pilgrims a year, the city’s population has ballooned to around 3 million in recent years. After a proposed modernisation of the area around the shrine complex by architect Dariush Borbor was abandoned following the Islamic revolution, rampant development in the last two decades may have helped aggravate social forces hitting the streets today.



It’s been rumoured that hardline rivals to Iran’s reformist president Hassan Rouhani orchestrated the street protests from their nationalist-religious base of Mashhad. Azar Tashakor, a 50-year-old urban sociologist whose father made pilgrimages to the city and who later studied there, thinks this underestimates a widening social gap.

Rising inequality

An elite – many connected with the Astan-e Qods charitable foundation that manages the shrine – are profiting from the cluster of luxury hotel and retail developments in the Thamen district surrounding the holy site. “The rapid rate of change has emphasised the inequality,” Tashakor says. “People can see the whole of commercialisation, capital accumulation and possibly embezzlement. But this kind of economic development is heaven for the conservatives who run the city.”

To the rural poor who flock to Mashhad as pilgrims and many of whom provide the workforce building it, such affluence in a sacred place may even seem hypocritical. “Many are religious, and they notice the inequalities in everyday life,” says Tashakor. “So I don’t think it’s the end of the protests.”

Mashhad in numbers

598,657 sq metres – the size of the Imam Reza shrine, the world’s largest mosque by surface area.

Seventh – the Shia imam murdered by Arabian Nights caliph Haroun al-Rashid, who is buried in Mashhad next to Imam Reza, the eighth (murdered by his son).

55% – of Iran’s hotels are in Mashhad.

90% – of the world’s saffron comes from Iran.

History in 100 words

Fatally poisoned with grapes in 818, Imam Reza put a small Khorasan steppe village on the pilgrimage map. Bazaars and amenities grew to cater to the worshippers at his gravesite, Mashhad (meaning a “place of martyrdom” in Arabic) became a town of note by the 13th-century Mongol invasion. The Uzbeks coveted this expanding religious centre enough to occupy it during the 16th century, but it was back in Persian hands by the time Afsharid dynasty strongman Nader Shah made it his capital. Several dynasties on, Reza Shah began Mashhad’s modernisation in the early 20th century, bringing in the first power station, buses and population census, counting 76,471 people. It has exploded since.

Mashhad in sound and vision

Masud Kimiai’s influential 1969 Iranian noir Qeysar features a Mashhad interlude where its brooding antihero takes an old lady to see Imam Reza.

Mohammad Reza Shajarian is regarded as one of the great masters of classical Persian music. But he can’t play it publicly in his hometown, as concerts are currently banned.

Key subculture

The gentrification of Thamen is alienating ordinary Iranians of the original pilgrim demographic, says Tashakor: “People from villages and small cities cannot find proper places to stay. They don’t use these hotels very much, because they’re too expensive. They used to go to very small houses in narrow lanes.” Even with a recent shift to catering for international pilgrims, hotel occupancy – now reportedly down to 20% – is becoming a problem.

With recent tensions with Saudi Arabia further reducing foreign visitors, the city’s dependency on religious tourism has become painfully obvious. Hence an unlikely move to give pilgrims more reasons to hang around in Mashhad; the city has become known for its many water parks, for those who like to follow ablutions with a bout of waterslide action. “As a pilgrim, you just need to go once or twice to the shrine. Then you have a lot of free time. So religious and leisure practices are tied to each other here,” says Tashakor.

How liveable is Mashhad?

Outside of the centre’s “rich ghetto”, deprivation is growing alarmingly. Mashhad’s precipitous growth – it has outgrown the 22,000-hectare limit laid out in its 1995 comprehensive plan by nearly a third – has made it particularly prone to slum proliferation. Up to 33% of the city’s population is thought to be crammed into 22% of its land area; some think it will rise to two-thirds in coming years.

For those on Mashhad’s poorest areas, the infrastructure and service provision is miles off the pace: the 800,000 in its 42 “marginal” neighbourhoods have access to a single hospital, and in some places it’s 16,000 to a pharmacy. Alongside the long commute times to informal construction work in the centre, the reasons for civil unrest come into clear focus. “There’s frustration and desperation,” says Tashakor. “You imagine a young person who wants to start his or her career in this city, and they can only get temporary, unstable jobs.”

Inside city hall

Astan-e Qods Razavi, which owns 43% of the city’s land and has Vatican-like authority in the shrine, sometimes wields its power in inscrutable style in Mashhad. One example is a spat with the civil authorities in 2011 over the programme of public art emblazoned over the city since the revolution.

On 5 June that year, a 2,200 sq metre mural depicting scenes from the Shahnameh, the epic poem by Ferdowsi (who is associated with Mashhad), was whitewashed overnight. The $30,000 project had been in on display in Ferdowsi Square and Boulevard, both public spaces, but the walls themselves were owned by Astan-e Qods, who objected to the secular imagery. Unable to challenge the decision, the municipality repainted the mural in a different location two years later.

The revolutionary guards had their say by erecting their own Shahnameh murals on walls directly opposite an Astan-e Qods sports facility. Public art is a means for the foundation and other religious bodies to remind the populace of celestial rules – and their earthly power. “You can see they try to maintain the morality of the city on some kind of visual level,” says Tashakor.

What’s next for the city?

Thinking beyond the shrine and hooking the rest of the city up with efficient public transport. An initial metro line, leading west to south-east (the first in Iran to connect to an airport), opened in 2011, and the first phase of line two started running in February last year. The tunnelling machines are currently at work on line three, with a further two branches and a monorail system under consideration.

Chinese finance is underwriting most of the new 926km electrified line that will link Mashhad and Tehran by the early 2020s. Seen as an important notch on China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, it’s not just the pilgrim trail the city belongs to.

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Close zoom

Finance Tribune is a reasonably government-sceptic source of English-language news about Mashhad, and further afield in Iran. This 2015 Guardian piece plunged headlong into the invigorating local blend of sanctity, sex and gnarly tubeslides, while footsore German blogger Christoph Rehage marched 26km through Mashhad’s outskirts on his trek from China to his home village. And all he got was this excellent photo essay.

Do you live in Mashhad? What key facts, figures and cultural highlights have we missed? Share your stories below



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