Persian Empire 1845

Chapter 365 Kemal in Tehran (Part 1)

After booking a hotel room in Tehran and dropping off his luggage, Kemal decided to explore the city and see what the Iranian capital was like, since it was still early.

First of all, Tehran is definitely not comparable to Constantinople. One is an inland city, and the other is a port city; their development directions are different. However, Tehran is clearly more industrial, with factories, schools, and a modern military and police force—features that Constantinople rarely has.

If Constantinople is a conservative city that hasn't yet been tainted by worldly concerns, then Tehran is a modern city forged from steam engines and steel. All sorts of novelties can be found in Tehran, and the locals readily embrace them.

Kemal decided to visit the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, which many merchants said was the most worthwhile place to go.

After renovations by the municipal government, the Grand Bazaar has become an important trading market in Tehran. Spices, medicinal herbs, textiles, food, and other goods are traded there, and performances are held on special holidays.

As Kemal stepped into the arched portico, he was choked by the overwhelming aroma of spices and sneezed. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass dome, casting geometric patterns from the Persian carpets onto the bustling crowd, as if laying a flowing magic carpet across the entire market.

"Sir! A fine Damascus steel knife!" A Kurdish merchant wearing a red turban suddenly blocked his way. Under the turban he lifted, the blade of the curved knife gleamed coldly, but the hilt was strangely inlaid with the Ottoman crescent emblem—clearly a souvenir made from a captured military knife.

As Kemal walked past a stall selling falcons, he nearly bumped into a troop of Persian cavalry. These soldiers, wearing black lambskin hats, were escorting several European-looking engineers, whose blueprints bore the inscription "Tehran-Basra Railway." Even more strangely, the officer leading the troop spoke fluent German with the engineers, his accent clearly bearing a Berlin accent.

"Make way!" A rough shout came from behind. Four burly men carrying steam engine parts squeezed through the crowd, the Persian script of "Yerevan Arsenal" on the bronze plaque gleaming in the sunlight. Kemal keenly noticed that these components, which should have been military secrets, were being transported openly like ordinary commodities.

The scene in the spice region is even more breathtaking. Pepper from the Malabar region of India, frankincense from the Arabian Peninsula, and even cinnamon from the Far East are all packed in standardized wooden crates adorned with the lion and sun emblem. A Zoroastrian priest is consecrating spices, while Shia clerics beside him are busy affixing certification labels to the crates—the two religious ceremonies are being carried out in harmonious sync.

"Try this?" The girl selling saffron suddenly offered him a golden teacup. Kemal took a sip; the sweet-bitter taste reminded him of the pastries in the capital. The girl giggled and lifted the lid of the earthenware jar: "It's made with rose syrup from Tabriz and sugar from Isfahan!" The bottom of the jar was clearly stamped with a Persian tax seal.

What struck Kemal most was the "machinery section" in the center of the bazaar. Unlike the goldsmiths' quarters in Istanbul, which were filled with the sounds of craftsmen's hammers, this area resonated with the roar of steam engines. Jewish craftsmen wearing small top hats were adjusting new spinning machines, their nameplates inscribed with blessings in both Hebrew and Persian. Even more astonishingly, in the next stall, Persian craftsmen were openly assembling the firing mechanisms of breech-loading rifles—an act punishable by hanging in the Ottoman Empire, yet here even the patrolling gendarmes gave it a second glance.

As the sun set, Kemal encountered several Polish-accented officers in the tea break area. Their uniforms were embroidered with strange badges: a Persian lion intertwined with a Polish eagle. One of them, drunkenly, raised his glass: "To the friendship between Warsaw and Tehran!" As the glasses clinked, Kemal clearly saw the specially made sabers from the Yerevan Armory tucked into their belts—the scabbards engraved with both Chopin's poetry and Quranic verses. As the curfew bells rang, Kemal caught a final, striking glimpse: a squad of Assyrian Christian guards were closing the bazaar gates, the bronze crosses on their chests clanging against the Persian military insignia. In the shadows of the porch, several Russian exiles were recording market prices in Cyrillic script—their notebooks a dense web of military terminology and economic data.

Back in his hotel room, Kemal wrote heavily in his diary: "The heart of this city is not in the palace, but in the Grand Bazaar." Before the ink was dry, the whistle of a steam locomotive sounded outside the window again—the night train was transporting goods from the bazaar to the border, and perhaps the secrets that would change the fate of the Ottomans were hidden in the carriages.

Kemal sat by the hotel window, gazing at the steam rising from the Tehran train station in the distance. The night wind carried the smell of burning coal and the clanging of metal from the distant arsenal, making the city's pulse exceptionally clear. He opened his diary, his pen pausing briefly on the paper before continuing to write:

"Tehran is not bound by tradition like Constantinople. It retains the ancient soul of Persia while embracing the power of modernity without hesitation. The army, factories, railways—and even the merchants in the bazaars—are like a finely tuned machine, and the one operating this machine is the Shah sitting in the Gulestan Palace."

Kemal frowned slightly. Iran's tentacles had already reached deep into the Ottoman heartland, while the empire's high command was still grappling with court infighting and internal corruption. He recalled the German engineers, Polish officers, and Armenian arms dealers he had seen in the bazaar earlier that day—Tehran was like a magnet, attracting European technology, talent, and ambition; like a giant furnace, forging different ethnicities, faiths, and technologies together to create a new empire. Constantinople, however, remained asleep.

"My trip to Tehran made me realize one thing—the decline of the Ottomans was not fate, but a choice. We refused to change, while the Persians embraced it."

If the Ottoman Empire wanted to survive, we had to make a choice—either radical reform like the Persians, or die in conservatism like the Roman Empire of the past.

He closed his diary and looked out the window at the Tehran night view.

This city may be the birthplace of the future Middle East landscape. And he must consider the future of the Ottoman Empire.

At breakfast the following day, the hotel owner enthusiastically recommended the day's itinerary: "You should visit the newly built Polytechnic Institute; it's open day today." The brochure he handed me featured a peculiar combination: the school emblem blended a traditional Persian astrolabe with a steam engine gear, while the motto was written in Persian: "Tradition and Innovation."

"Thank you for the recommendation, I will check it out."

(End of this chapter)