Ardabil

Ardabil is an old town of the Azerbaijan plateau, mentioned in early Islamic sources as the seat of the governors of the province and a stop on the roads between the Caspian lowlands and the interior. Its position below Sabalan gave it pasture, water and a route east to the sea, and its high plain made it a military base in winter campaigns. Arab geographers described it as the region's principal city before Tabriz overtook it.

Its lasting importance came from one family. Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardabili, who died in 1334, led a Sufi order whose lodge in the town drew followers from across Azerbaijan and Anatolia. Over the following century the order became a military as well as a religious movement, and in 1501 the young Ismail, a descendant of the sheikh, took Tabriz and proclaimed himself shah, founding the Safavid dynasty that made Shia Islam the religion of Iran. Ardabil remained the dynasty's spiritual home, and its shrine was enlarged, tiled and filled with gifts, among them the pair of enormous carpets of 1539–40 now split between London and Los Angeles.

Later centuries were harder. The Ottomans raided the town repeatedly, Russian forces occupied it during the wars of the early 19th century, and treasures were carried off from the shrine. Under the Qajars and the Pahlavis Ardabil was a provincial market town for carpets, grain and livestock; it became the capital of a province of its own in 1993. A severe earthquake struck the province in 1997, killing more than a thousand people in the villages to the west. The shrine ensemble was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2010.

Ardabil is an Azerbaijani-speaking city, and daily conversation, jokes and songs are in Azerbaijani Turkish, with Persian used in offices, schools and newspapers. The ashiq, a bard who sings narrative poems to the long-necked saz, belongs to this tradition, and weddings still bring out line dances and loud outdoor music. People are known in Iran for blunt warmth, for enormous hospitality and for the quantities of food pressed on visitors.

Religion shapes the calendar. The city's identity is bound up with the Safavid order, and the shrine is a place of pilgrimage rather than only a monument. Muharram is observed intensely, with black banners over the streets, processions and the free distribution of food. Funerals, weddings and religious feasts all draw large numbers of relatives, and family obligations are taken seriously.

Carpets are the craft the city is known for beyond Iran. The Ardabil workshops and the villages of the province produce knotted rugs whose designs are studied worldwide, and the pair of Safavid carpets made for the shrine, now in London and Los Angeles, are among the most famous in the world. Wrestling and football have strong local followings, and in winter the mountains bring out skiers and snow-shoe walkers from the city. Locals are proud of the mineral springs of Sareyn and of Sabalan itself, which appears in Persian and Azerbaijani poetry as a symbol of the region.

About 590,000 people live in Ardabil, making it the largest city of its province and one of the main centres of Iranian Azerbaijan after Tabriz and Urmia. The population is overwhelmingly Azerbaijani and Shia, and many households keep close ties to villages on the plain and the mountain slopes.

The economy rests on farming, food processing and trade. The surrounding plain grows wheat, barley, potatoes and pulses, and the pastures of Sabalan support sheep, dairy and the honey the province is known for. Carpet weaving continues in workshops and homes, tourism from elsewhere in Iran supports the hot-spring towns, and the city has light industry and a university. Unemployment and the drift of young people to Tehran and Tabriz are persistent concerns, and sanctions and inflation have squeezed household budgets for years.

Winter dominates the rhythm of the year. Snow lies for months, heating costs weigh on families, and life moves indoors around tea, relatives and long meals. When the weather turns, the city empties into the open air: walks around Shorabil Lake, picnics on the plain, and weekends at the springs. Traffic on the central avenues, air quality in winter and water supply in dry years are the everyday complaints.

Ardabil's cooking belongs to the Azerbaijani north-west and leans on dairy, lamb and herbs. Ash-e doogh, a hot soup of yoghurt with chickpeas, rice and green herbs, is the dish most associated with the city and the province, eaten as a warming lunch through the cold months. Dolma — vine leaves, peppers or aubergines stuffed with meat, rice and herbs — appears at family meals, and koofteh, the large stuffed meatball of the north-west, is made here as well.

Dairy is the pride of the province. Buttermilk (doogh), thick yoghurt, butter and cheese from the Sabalan pastures are sold fresh in the bazaar, and honey from the same slopes is the standard gift to take home from Ardabil. Lamb from the mountain flocks is grilled as kebab or cooked slowly in dizi, the stew of lamb, chickpeas and potatoes that is mashed at the table and eaten with flatbread, raw onion and herbs.

Sweets and tea round out the day. Local confectioners sell halva, nougat and sugared almonds, and tea is drunk strong and dark from small glasses, taken through a sugar cube held between the teeth. In summer, cold doogh with mint accompanies almost every meal, and the mineral waters of the springs west of the city are bottled and sold across the country.