Iran Standard Time: a day at the Kerman bazzar

The Guardian

One time in Keman, my grandmother sent me to the bazaar for cumin. I asked for a quarter of a kilo. Perched comfortably on his chair, the spice seller looked me in the eye and raised his brows in a "no".

That's the stereotypical Kermani attitude for you, too blasé to even speak. Trying to trump him at his own game, I pretended not to understand the gesture until he was finally forced to reply: "We don't have any."

I pointed to a huge sack of cumin in the back.

He grumbled like a bear deep in winter slumber. "You said you want a quarter of a kilo. You want me to get up and walk to the back and open the sack and weigh your purchase ... do all that work, for a quarter of a kilo? Nope, my child, I don't have a quarter of a kilo."

Such incidents aren't rare here. A merchant unwilling to rise from his seat might ask you to come back the next day when the shop is busy and he's up anyway, or he might just ignore you - gaze through you with eyes half closed until you go away. I always react to rudeness in other circumstances, but somehow these shop owners don't bother me. The bazaar exemplifies Kerman's whimsical, lazy spirit, often exacerbated by the region's avid taste for opium. (Kermanis distinguish traditional leisurely use from addiction.)

The Kerman bazaar is one of my favourite places. Not only is it beautiful - despite the fact that it is crumbling - but the spirit of the city sieves through it. Underneath brick domes, through bustling hallways, the conversations and negotiations with the shop owners give glimpses of the heart of the city, 600 miles (965 km) to the southeast of Tehran.

At the same time they are also savvy businessmen. How they negotiate these seemingly contradictory traits is part of what defines this bazaar. In Tehran, Isfahan and Mashhad, the bazaars have lost their identities - the styles and attitudes that made them unique to their particular geographies and histories. In an age where their sons are no longer being trained at their sides, I often wonder what will become of this place when the old men are gone. When the last of these bazaaris leaves his shop, the spirit of this bazaar too will fade forever.

I have heard of the old bazaar district in Mashhad that was completely demolished to make way for new development under the shah despite his wife’s efforts to preserve it. And I wonder how many other places across Iran, cities and towns I’ve never heard of, had bazaars and neighbourhoods now gone without a trace.

Each section of Kerman’s bazaar leads to a courtyard, with rooms all around it. These are the caravans for which the bazaar was once known. In the old days, like hotels, they hosted travellers and itinerant merchants. The caravans were still in good shape only 20 years ago, my uncle says. Now they are in disrepair, used mostly as storage and parking spaces. The bazaar’s gorgeous blue hand-carved wooden doors are also steadily being replaced by iron ones. Mine will probably be the last generation to see a hint of what the bazaar used to be, of the life that it once breathed into the city.

The copper-making section is one of the parts of the bazaar I cherish most. Kerman copper was once an industry and an art, made manifest in the beautiful, intricate engravings on dishes from centuries past. The very fact that there are still a few copper shops left is something to be grateful for. The copper section of the bazaar in Yazd, 220 miles to the northwest, has all but disappeared.

This is taking place across Iran. In towns in Khuzestan province, at the top of the Persian Gulf, handmade tin and brass were important industries. Looking at old pieces, one marvels at the craftsmanship and art that went into the simplest objects. Now this handicraft tradition has been completely wiped away and replaced by stainless steel from China.

In the Kerman bazaar, the name Ashrafzadeh and copper go together. The Ashrafzadehs are everywhere. However, there is one whose work outshines all others’. As if to proclaim this distinction, his shop isn’t even inside the bazaar, but stands alone outside it, on Khajou Street. A feisty man in his seventies never seen without his wool cap, he is one of the last copper workers to infuse his craft with art and not just endlessly reproduce standard designs.

He has been a friend of our family for years, but he does not know me or my aunt. We get there before noon. The door to the shop is shut but unlocked. We open it and walk inside. My aunt calls out: “Mr Ashrafzadeh?”

Suddenly, he jumps out from the back, angry as hell. “Where’d you come from? How did you get in?” he bellows.

My aunt and I look at each other, unsure of what to say. She finally responds in a firm voice: “The door wasn’t locked so we walked in. If you want to keep yelling, we’ll take our business elsewhere.”

He starts to soften and opens a drawer full of cash. “This, I was worried for this.”

She snaps at him: “You leave a stash of cash out in the open and then blame us for walking into your shop?”

He looks at us, stunned. He’s probably not used to customers answering back. But then he apologizes. That sort of self-awareness is what makes the grumpiness of the Kermani bazaar man tolerable.

I ask him if I can walk around the shop. The walls are lined with shelves full of copper dishes thrown one on top of the other. There is no decor. “I don’t need it, my name speaks for itself,” he declares. Mr Ashrafzadeh certainly doesn’t indulge in false modesty.

In the back is where he works – on the ground, in a dark, dingy space that smells of oil and fire. His hands are rugged and the tips are almost as dark as unprocessed copper. Beyond the workshop is a yard where stacked in heaps there is everything from, as we say in Persian, “chicken milk to human life”: copper sheets, old tools, clothing, wood, furniture, magazines.

Mr Ashrafzadeh has agreed to customize a few of his ready-made pieces for us. While he and my aunt negotiate, three other customers walk in. As soon as they see what he’s discussing, they want pieces just like ours. This annoys him and he starts grumbling again.

I ask Mr Ashrafzadeh if he’ll take any students. “You? You want to sit here and knock on copper all day? Sorry, this isn’t work for girls ... or anyone! Youth these days can only hit buttons on their phones. Labor and love and attention like this are dead forever.”

He speaks with a deep Kermani accent, ending many words with an “oo.” The sound of Farsi here is like a man laughing and rolling in the desert. I ask how long he’s worked with copper.

“I started doing this when I was three years old. There was no baby carriage and all the contraptions parents use these days. My dad would put me in a sack and bring me to the shop. I was three years old the first time he gave me a piece of copper and told me to start hitting.”

We leave the store with bags full of clinking copper and head inside the bazaar. Twelve sharp is when we’re supposed to meet Mrs Sarafrazi and we don’t have much time. She’s finally agreed to squeeze me in for some pateh tutoring.

Pateh is the art of the embroidery on wool, practiced for ages by the people of Kerman. A family’s prestige and place in society is in part determined by the works of pateh they pass on to their children. They’re precious heirlooms, handed down from one generation to the next. Up in Yazd the specialty is termeh, silk weaving; in Kerman, the word is used to indicate something of little value. “Pass me that termeh” your grandmother might tell you, pointing to an old bed sheet she wants to put in the washing machine.

There are numerous pateh shops in Kerman, but Mrs Sarafrazi’s work is on a level of its own. She designs new patterns and colours, while others just knock out the standards. She is also a savvy businesswoman with the typical style of the Kerman retailer – she won’t answer to just anyone. A number of people walk in and ask to see a piece of pateh hanging on the wall. She hands it over to just one.

“The others weren’t going to buy anything. After 50 years in this business, I can tell,” she explains, noticing my inquisitive look. She’s been doing this since she was nine. My family are long-time customers, and that’s probably why she’s agreed to meet with me for half an hour to introduce me to the ins and outs of pateh embroidery.

What I love about pateh is that everything – the colours, the patterns, the rough texture – tells you it comes from people of the desert. The brooding hues evoke a sultry summer day in the mountains that surround the city. Place a handmade Kerman copper dish on a piece of pateh, and your table will be glorious.

“I can’t do it slowly,” Mrs Sarafrazi says as she embroiders as fast as an Olympic speed skater. “Use the camera on your phone to film me so you can figure it out later.” Her hands fly over the wool: swish swish swish.

I needed way more than half an hour for this.

While she is teaching me – or rather, while I’m acting like I can follow what she’s doing – a woman walks in, one of her employees. She’s run out of orange thread for the piece she’s working on. Mrs Sarafrazi gives her a brusque lecture about all the sections she’s done wrong.

Pateh embroidery is the source of income for many women in Kerman. Like carpets, it’s something they can make at home and sell. A number of charity organizations hold pateh-making classes in nearby towns and villages; Mrs Sarafrazi has conducted ones under the sponsorship of the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation.

Not all pateh is made equal. A square metre can cost anywhere between 200,000 and 800,000 tomans (£40–160) depending on the intricacy of the work. I might not know how to embroider very well, but I can look at a piece of pateh and tell you how good it is. I’m proud of this, though I’m not sure it’s of much use.

In the manner of demanding teachers anywhere, Mrs Sarafrazi asks me to repeat what she’s just done. I look at her with misty eyes. I don’t even know where to begin.

“Kids these days,” Mrs Sarafrazi mutters.