Original subtitles

As a reporter,

I've traveled the Middle East for many years.

It's an area that has always fascinated me.

But in my work, I've mainly covered its war zones,

its crises, and its tragedies.

This journey, which takes me down the Silk Road

in the footsteps of Marco Polo,

gives me the opportunity of exploring

the great historical and cultural significance

of this part of the world,

its ancient melting pots of peoples and civilizations

that have contributed so much to our own.

(pulsating music)

My journey through Iran takes me next to Qazvin,

which was once a major stop on the caravan route.

A city of 400,000 inhabitants

nestled in the foothills

of the spectacular Elburz mountain range.

Qazvin marks the entrance to the lands

historically associated with Persia,

in contrast to the Kurdish and Azeri regions

to the west and north of present day Iran.

(upbeat music)

The more you discover about this country,

the more you realize that there's

an ongoing conversation between the Iran of today

and the Persia of the past.

So much so that you sometimes get the feeling

that you're actually treading

in the footsteps of the merchants

who traveled the Silk Road.

Qazvin was easier to defend than Tabriz,

and it became the capital of the empire

under the dynasty of the Safavid Shahs

in the 16th century.

This was the last century of prosperity

for trade on the Silk Road

before the maritime routes took over.

In unseating Tamerlane's Timurid dynasty,

the Safavids became the first purely Iranian dynasty

to reign after 500 years of dominance by Turks and Mongols.

Their extraordinary architectural skills can be seen

when we enter this caravanserai.

Of course you can't feel it,

but it's maybe five or ten degrees cooler here than it is

out in the street where we were a couple of minutes ago.

The ventilation comes from the air vents that we see

above us.

The hot air goes out while the cold air circulates

at ground level.

In here, the temperature is quite pleasant.

One of the things that strikes me the most about Iranians,

is that they have a deeply ingrained love of culture.

It's obvious that culture plays a very important role

in their lives.

Not only among the elite.

Anyone would be happy to tell you about the great events

in Persian history.

The great poets, the great builders.

And the journalist Atafir Hosseiniyeh is no exception

to the rule.

She works for the local newspaper in Qazvin,

and certainly has a lot to say.

Was a caravanserai actually more like a hotel

or a bazar, a group of shops?

Both of them, together.

This place was on the Silk Road, as you know.

And many people stopped here.

Since they needed somewhere to stay, there were places

in which they could be housed.

Something like today's hotel rooms.

And at the same time,

it was useful for the people of Qazvin.

This place was like a bazar.

Like a market for them.

In other words, they could come and sell their products

to the people who were staying here,

and so it also had an economic function.

You're very passionate about the Silk Road,

but is it something that interests young Iranians nowadays,

at the beginning of the 21st century?

My interest in the Silk Road comes from my love

of Iranian history, of the past, of the ancient culture

of this country.

We can't say that all Iranians are knowledgeable about

the history of their country,

but the number of people for whom it is important,

who do research and who have a lot of knowledge

about our history is really quite high.

The truth is that in most cities in Iran,

history is alive.

And you can't say that those cities don't have any identity.

This caravanserai is like a palace,

which tells us that Qazvin was once a major capital.

But now, in comparison to other cities in Iran,

it's quite small with 500,000 inhabitants.

So are there a lot of cultural activities for you to cover

as a journalist here?

In this city,

there are a lot of people from different backgrounds.

So you have a whole variety of cultures here,

and that gives you a lot to write about.

That's one of my favorite subjects,

and I'd like to delve into it more later on to make

social documentaries.

The last article I wrote was about women

and the economic crisis.

It was called "Living on a Mine."

It was about women who have to beg in the streets

and how to find solutions to help them stop.

Because if it's painful to beg, it's even worse for women.

Without doubt,

the history of their country matters a lot to Iranians,

and in particular the history of

(speaking in Persian)

the Silk Road.

A little further on, as we meander through the bazar,

I find out that the city of Qazvin has even created

a special Silk Road office,

and appointed an international representative

to handle the subject.

I'm very surprised to see that Iran has an office

dedicated to the Silk Road.

When did you set it up and why?

About ten years ago, an NGO called WCO,

the World Citizens Organization,

decided to start up a discussion in Korea

between the mayors of cities located on the Silk Road.

Their aim was to reconstruct the Silk Road,

not physically, but as a functional and cultural entity.

If one considers its origins, the Silk Road is a route,

one might say a space, that connects different cultures

and traditions.

The eleventh summit was held from the second to the fifth

of September 2016, in the city of Qazvin.

It brought together the mayors of 200 cities

in 67 countries around the world,

from Southeast Asia to Western Europe.

You say that there are 67 countries

on the Silk Road Committee, but what I don't understand

is that from Turkey to China there aren't, in fact,

67 countries.

Who are the members of your organization?

You're right,

there aren't 67 countries along the Silk Road.

And even all of the cities in our own country, Iran,

are not actually on the Silk Road.

In reality, it's become a pretext for creating a connection

between different peoples and different cities,

and it's based on mutual respect between the peoples

and traditions that exist in all of these countries.

In short, this project launched by the WCO,

or World Citizens Organization,

is a little vague.

But what is interesting is how proud certain countries,

especially Iran and China, have become of the historical

ties to the Silk Road.

Traveling from Qazvin, one heads into the Elburz Mountains.

A vast chain of peaks rising to over 5,671 meters,

at Mount Damavand, north of Tehran.

For a long time, these mountains were a favorite hideout

for bandits and caravan looters,

but they weren't the only ones here.

For several centuries, these remote valleys also provided

shelter for a sect known as the Nizaris,

who in the 10th century broke away from the Ismailis,

who themselves were an offshoot of Shi'a Islam.

As Muslims, they were thus a minority within a minority.

A group that was often persecuted.

(ominous music)

This is an amazing sight, it's just spectacular.

We're over 2,000 meters above sea level,

it's like an eagle's nest.

This place is called Alamut,

it's the fortress of the old man on the mountain.

(speaking in Persian)

The founder of the Ismaili sect known as the Hashashin.

They were called Hashashin because they grew hashish,

which Hassan Isaba would give to his young recruits

to smoke.

He'd have them spend a few days in a beautiful garden,

meet virgin girls, etc.

He'd make them believe they were in paradise,

then he'd take the hashish away.

The guys were in withdrawal, they were junkies.

Then he'd say, go kill one of my enemies for me.

It might be a Muslim emir, or one of the leaders

of the crusades.

After you murder him, you'll go straight to heaven.

You'll be killed right away,

but you'll go and live in paradise.

And since the guys wanted to get their drugs back,

to return to that heavenly garden

and be with those girls again,

they would go and do it.

So that's how they got the name Hashashin,

smoker of Hashish, which is the word assassin comes from.

Basically, Hassan Isaba invented suicide bombing.

A wonderful novel by Amin Maalouf,

tells the story of the friendship between the old man

on the mountain and Mani,

the prophet of Manichaean dualism,

and the great mystic poet, Omar Khayyam.

It's called The Gardens of Light.

I read it as a teenager, and since then,

I've always dreamed of visiting Alamut, or at least,

what is left of it.

(calm music)

The solitude of the Elburz Mountains will soon give way

to the noise and crowds of Tehran, the Iranian capital,

with its skyscrapers and monstrous traffic jams.

Tehran is built on the southern slopes

of the Elburz Mountains at 1,300 meters above sea level.

From the top of the city, you can hop onto a chair lift

that will take you straight up to the ski slopes.

This may be the only capital in the world that turns

into a ski resort during the winter season.

Tehran is a city that has mushroomed in the last 25 years,

tripling in size to nearly 15 million people.

If you look behind me, you'll see how spread out it is.

It's now 50 kilometers wide and 30 kilometers long.

Hardly the small, provincial town that travelers

used to come across on the old Silk Road.

This flourishing mega city also testifies

to the extraordinary flare for business and trade

that the Persians and then the Iranians have always had.

They dominated the Silk Road very early on,

and controlled the routes from India and China,

to present day Turkey and Europe.

What is perhaps the most surprising thing about Tehran

is the contrast between the two Irans.

One, which is rather hide bound, the Islamic Republic,

with its huge portraits of the Ayatollah Khomeini,

and its slogans against America, the great Satan.

And the other, a country of young people,

a capital in full economic boom impatiently waiting

for the sanctions connected with the nuclear conflict

to be lifted.

Iran is constantly navigating between these paradigms,

like those women, who are playing sports in sweatsuits,

while also wearing the mandatory hijab.

Or those couples who are flirting discreetly

in spite of the ban imposed by the religious police.

This is Laleh Park, one of the big parks in central Tehran.

A lush oasis in the midst of this gargantuan metropolis,

and a favorite hangout for the local chess players.

(uplifting music)

From what I can see, they're very good players.

Which is quite logical since this is, in fact,

the homeland of chess.

The first historical reference to the game they call,

Shatranj, which is an Arabic word, was in Iran,

or rather in Persia in 600 BC.

There are several theories about where the game comes from.

Nowadays, most people agree that it originated in India.

But was formalized and popularized in Iran.

Then it was brought to Spain by the Arabs

around the 10th century.

That's how Europeans were introduced to this game,

and they developed a passion for it during the Middle Ages.

According to the legend, in the sixth century,

an Indian ambassador brought the game of Four Kings,

or Shatranj, to the court of Koshro the First,

the Emperor or Shah of Persia,

in order to test his intelligence.

In reality, the game probably circulated

among the nomadic peoples of Central Asia before it arrived

in Persia via the trade routes.

And the same nomads would later bring it with them

to the Arabian Peninsula.

In fact, Ali who was married to Fatima,

the prophet Muhammad's daughter, was an avid chess player.

From Arabia, the game traveled via the Arab conquests

to Andalucia, and from there it spread to the rest of Europe

in the Middle Ages.

The game they play here called Shatranj,

is basically the same as the chess that is played in Europe,

but the terms they use are either Indian or Iranian.

So the king is, well, the king.

The queen is not a lady in Iran,

but the vizier, the minister.

And it's not the bishop here, but rather, the elephant.

Beyond that, however, the way the pieces are moved

is the same as in the western version.

In the Arab regions, the game of chess was soon banned

by purist Muslim theologians based on the Quranic precept

that the use of figurines representing the human form

is impious.

The pieces thus took on a form that is usually abstract,

and identifiable via its designs.

In Persia, on the other hand, the pieces often kept

their figurative shape such as, for example, the horse.

Sit down, please.

Alfred.

But, my level is, uh...

(players talking)

(quirky music)

To everyone's astonishment, I won.

Chess belongs to the traditional Indo-Oriental roots

of Persia.

But the Iran of today is not at all a monolithic block.

There's an intermingling of influences from the east

as well as from the west.

The traditions of the past encounter the new trends

embraced by the younger generation.

Which often yearns for a more modern, more open society.

Slim jeans, bandanas, an electro remix by Pink Floyd

blasting in the background.

Iranian youth are thoroughly imbued with American culture.

In the end, the Silk Road was just as much about exchanges

between cultures as it was between trade and commerce.

And here in Tehran, we can see that those cultural exchanges

are still going on today,

although it's no longer on the backs of Bactrian camels,

but on the back of the internet.

For example, around us in a skate park, we can see

the influence of American culture.

It may seem a little paradoxical since America officially

remains the great Satan in the eyes of the Shiite clerics

who rule the country.

But this skate park is perfectly legal.

Hi Mickey, so, how old are you

and how long have you been skateboarding?

I'm 19 years old and I'm skating for like six years.

Six years and a half.

How long have people been skateboarding in Iran?

Around 20 years, 15 years.

We've seen progress, and people are skating more than ever.

But when people began skating 20 years ago,

that was when Iran was still very isolated, and above all,

from the United States.

Skateboarding is totally American, so how do you deal

with that contradiction.

Yeah, skateboarding is a way of life.

We don't combine them together, you know?

When you skate with an American skater you don't

see things in between.

You just call that guy your brother.

(upbeat music)

People always ask us, what's like that?

To be skating the American sport in Iran?

And actually it's, I don't know.

But we call each other brothers.

And that's good.

We don't think, where you from, how you look,

we just skate.

You say it's not the look that counts,

but from what I can see, the look seems to be a big thing.

Everyone's wearing slim jeans, bandanas on their heads,

hip tshirts, so what's going on?

You know, it's because of what they listen to in music.

They listen to hip hop, some of them listen to metal,

or something like that.

So it's, I know what you mean.

But everybody has a different style.

But when we speak, we have the same thing to talk about.

People are more common.

Kids, like eight years old, nine years old,

they are skating.

It's in progress.

How much time do you spend skateboarding?

And what do you like about this sport?

Why are you so hooked on it?

I skate four hours a day.

After work, after university.

Skateboarding is way different than what people think.

They think it's just a hobby, but no, it's like,

it's changed a lot of things in my life.

Like what?

My behavior, my attitude, and the way I dress, clothes.

It's hard to explain, it's like you are free when you skate.

You don't have to think about tomorrow, you don't have

to think about the past.

You just escape and you're happy,

you actually are happy.

And that's it.

It's the best thing that ever happened to me.

(speaking in Persian)

(laughing)

Right next to the skate park,

is the Tabi'at Bridge, the Nature Bridge in Persian.

The concept is more or less the same,

a bold display of modernity with a stamp of approval

from the Iranian authorities.

This suspension bridge right in the heart of Tehran

is quite astonishing, especially since it was designed

by a young, female architect.

As you walk along this new bridge of size,

you'll notice that here in the Iranian capital,

the young women are extremely made up, often to the point

of using plastic surgery.

Moreover, they have a very minimalist approach to wearing

the headscarf imposed by the regime.

Circumventing social mores is a subtle art practiced

by today's young couples,

who indulge in the delights of flirting on this bridge.

(calm music)

On the outskirts of the capital, there's a military zone

where I find the oldest sport in the country

being practiced.

Polo.

For thousands of years,

there was just one item that was essential to the Chinese.

An imported item, and that was the horse.

They started buying horses from the Persians in 200 BC,

and continued to do so for 2,000 years.

The only horses they sought were Persian horses called

blood sweaters.

Some historians believe that these heavenly horses

that seem to sweat blood, were in fact victims of a parasite

that made their skin bleed.

It's true that they were the fastest horses in the world,

and those were the horses they played polo with.

If there's one sport that is emblematic of the Silk Road,

it's polo.

Which the Persians call the king of sports,

and the sport of kings.

Polo spread up and down the Silk Road to China in the east,

and towards Byzantium in the west.

It's sport that's been played from 500 BC

until the present day.

(horses trotting)

(Alfred clicking his tongue)

Hi there, little foal.

Marco Polo says that the Persian Charger was the most

highly prized horse in the world,

and that it sold for 200 Tehran pounds,

which, apparently, was an enormous sum.

Hey, don't eat me.

So, imagine that little guy, 200 Tehran pounds.

(soft music)

So, here we have the ball, and the polo stick.

The Iranian name for polo is chogan, which means mallet.

According to the legend,

Alexander the Great received a ball and a mallet

from Darius, the king of Persia, which basically meant,

you're just a kid, keep playing.

Alexander is said to have told him, you see this ball?

Well, it's the earth.

And this mallet is me.

Which shows what he thought of himself.

But in fact, as history would prove, he knew what he wanted,

and he went after it.

Considered an aristocratic sport,

polo was banned by the Ayatollah Khomeini

after the 1979 revolution that brought about the fall

of the Shah Reza Pahlavi.

Ten years later, however, polo was rehabilitated

because of its significance for the country's

cultural history.

Amirahli Zalfigari is a big fan of polo.

How many horses are needed to play in a polo match?

You need at least four.

Four ponies, four horses.

Polo ponies.

Because you're not supposed to repeat in a match

more than twice.

Depending on the number of trackers or periods in a match.

Normally, in the lower levels of polo, with four is enough.

As you go to higher level of matches,

you might ned up to ten each player.

Yeah, you need plenty.

(speaking French)

I'm not really good at playing.

It's okay.

So, in fact, polo was invented by the Scythians,

a nomadic people who roam the northern parts of Iran.

The emperor of Persia made them his cavalry.

And, in fact, we can see why, because polo is actually

an excellent way of training.

It was adopted by the cavalry.

It's like a way of training for the battle before

the real match.

(horses galloping)

The Chinese believe that these horses

came from the Fergana Valley, which is now in Uzbekistan.

In fact, the Persian dealers traded for them on farms,

throughout all of Central Asia and present day Iran.

Polo ponies, nowadays, is a mixed race, special race.

In the higher level of polo, the Thoroughbred,

English Thoroughbred race is used, same as a race horse,

and we use the Turkoman horse mixed with the Thoroughbred.

The Turkoman horse we mix with the Arab or with the Kurdish

horse as well, is used a lot, and they do very well.

The mare that I rode, Little Bird,

is a good example of this.

At the slightest pull on the reins, she twirls around,

and she can even stop in full gallop.

(soaring music)

Now it's time to leave Tehran, this time by train,

to get to the city of Kashan

we'll be crossing a part of Dasht-e Kavir,

the Big Salt Desert.

(upbeat traditional music)