Word: persianism
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...metallic-sheen suit strolls slowly down an aisle with a dark-haired woman in fur on his arm. They stop occasionally to examine one of the many Persian carpets arrayed on a wall the length of a tennis court. Against the black cloth of the exhibition hall's walls, the brightly colored handmade silk carpets - in vibrant blues and greens, luscious reds and purples - almost leap off the backdrop...
...through three halls in Moscow's Crocus Expo center - this year it took up only two. With fewer vendors and wider aisles between the stands, the small number of visitors seemed even more sparse. "There are much fewer people this year," said Dzhasur Madzhidov, a carpet salesman with Persian World, a Tokyo-based seller. Normally, "we would have sold everything - even the carpets off the walls." (See pictures of Moscow...
...removed from Tehran's bustling tin-roofed teashops and Isfahan's verdant pomegranate gardens, the deserts known as Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut meet at the city of Yazd, once the heart of the Persian Empire...
...alabaster prayer room of the Zoroastrian temple in the center of Yazd, a handful of adherents sway to the cadence of ancient Persian prayers recited as a priest feeds sticks of sandalwood and sprinkles of frankincense into a blazing urn. Zoroastrians wear hand-woven wool cords as external symbols of their faith, and almost always pray in front of a fire, which represents purity and sustainability. In Yazd, the holy flame has burned for 1,500 years without ever being extinguished. While Zoroastrianism was once the dominant religion in a swathe of territory spanning from Rome and Greece to India...
...According to Parva Namiranian, a Zoroastrian medical student at Tehran University, the community in Iran preserves its identity by learning the Persian poetry of the Shah Nameh and holding religious classes and celebrations. She says Zoroastrians are accepted in Iran because they "represent a proud history" and all Iranians, regardless of religion, enjoy celebrating the Zoroastrian New Year, Nowruz, because it's an excuse to buy clothes and eat sweets. Mehraban Firouzgary, the head priest in the Zoroastrian temple in Tehran, agrees that most Iranians regard the Zoroastrian minority favorably, but he worries about the community's survival. "Zoroastrians have...