Hamadan

Hamadan claims to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Iran. Beneath its streets lies Ecbatana, the capital of the Medes from the seventh century BC, described by Greek writers as a city of concentric walls painted in different colours. After Cyrus the Great absorbed the Median kingdom, the Achaemenids kept it as a summer residence, high and cool above the plains, and Darius and Xerxes had their inscriptions cut into the cliff at Ganjnameh, on the road over Alvand. Alexander's army passed through, and under the Parthians and Sasanians the city remained an important stage on the route west.

Arab armies took the region in the seventh century, and the city, now called Hamadan, became a provincial centre of the Islamic world with a substantial Jewish community whose tradition placed the graves of Esther and Mordecai here. It was a Seljuk capital in the 11th and 12th centuries, when the Alavian family built the carved mausoleum that still stands, and the philosopher and physician Ibn Sina, known in Europe as Avicenna, spent his last years at the local court and died in the city in 1037.

Mongol and Timurid invasions and later Ottoman campaigns wrecked the city more than once, and in the First World War it saw heavy fighting between Russian and Turko-German forces. It was rebuilt on a new plan in the 1920s, when six avenues were laid out radiating from a central square. The mound was first excavated in 1913, digging on the tell itself began in 1983 and the work continues, and the present tower over Avicenna's grave was dedicated in 1954 to mark the millennium of his birth.

Hamadan presents itself as a city of learning and poetry. Avicenna, whose Canon of Medicine was taught in Europe for centuries, is the figure the city is proudest of, and his mausoleum doubles as a library and museum. The 11th-century poet Baba Taher, who wrote in a local dialect and is loved across Iran for his short, plain verses about longing and the mountains, is buried on a rise in the centre, and his quatrains are still sung.

The province is mixed. Persian is the city's language, with Azerbaijani, Kurdish and Luri spoken in different parts of the surrounding countryside, and local weddings and music reflect that variety. The old Jewish community, once one of the largest in Iran, has shrunk to a handful of families, but the shrine of Esther and Mordecai remains a landmark and a place of pilgrimage. Christian communities have older churches in the same quarter.

Craft is a working tradition rather than a museum piece. Lalejin, just north of the city, is a centre of Iranian pottery, its kilns turning out the glazed blue and green wares sold in bazaars nationwide, and Hamadan itself is known for leather, carpets from the villages and ceramics. Mountains shape the calendar: families picnic in the Alvand valleys in summer and the winter brings long months indoors around tea and poetry.

About 550,000 people live in Hamadan, the largest city of its province and a regional centre for a farming hinterland. The population is mostly Persian-speaking and Shia, with Azerbaijani, Kurdish and Luri families from the countryside settled across the city.

The economy is built on agriculture and the trades that serve it. The plains around the city grow wheat, barley, potatoes, grapes, walnuts and garlic, and Hamadan province is one of Iran's main producers of several of these crops. Food processing, leather, ceramics from Lalejin, carpets and small manufacturing provide most industrial work, alongside universities, hospitals and the provincial administration. Domestic tourism matters in summer, when Iranians come for the cool air.

Winter dominates the year: months of snow, high heating costs and life indoors, followed by a short, intense green season. Water shortages, the decline of groundwater under the plain and the drift of young people to Tehran for work are constant local concerns, as are the inflation and sanctions that affect household budgets across Iran. Evenings in the warm months bring families out to the parks, the central square and the picnic grounds at the foot of the mountain.

Hamadan's cooking is that of the cold western highlands, built on lamb, dairy and the crops of the plain. Grilled kebab with saffron-buttered rice, and dizi — lamb, chickpeas and potato stewed in a stone pot, the broth drunk first and the rest mashed and eaten with flatbread, raw onion and herbs — are the everyday meals in the restaurants and tea houses. Thick stews such as ghormeh sabzi and gheimeh appear at home, and ash, the thick herb and pulse soup, is made through the cold months.

Dairy is the region's strength. The pastures on Alvand produce yoghurt, butter, cheese and doogh, the salted mint buttermilk drunk with almost every meal, and honey from the mountain hives is sold in the bazaar and at roadside stalls. Walnuts from Tuyserkan, garlic, grapes and potatoes from the plain, and wild herbs and mushrooms gathered in spring all reach the city's markets.

Bakeries turn out sangak, baked on a bed of hot pebbles, and thin lavash, and the sweet shops sell nougat, halva and pastries flavoured with rosewater, cardamom and saffron, along with nuts and dried fruit sold by weight. Tea is constant, dark and hot in small glasses with sugar cubes, and in summer sherbets of vinegar and mint or of rosewater cool the afternoon.