Mashhad, Yazd & the East

Khorasan, "where the sun rises", was the eastern heartland of Iranian civilisation. The Parthians came from its northern edge, and in the early Islamic centuries its cities — Nishapur and Tus among them — were among the great centres of learning in the Muslim world, the homes of Ferdowsi, author of the Shahnameh, and of Omar Khayyam. The Mongols devastated Nishapur in 1221. Mashhad grew around the tomb of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia imam, who died in 818, and became Iran's great pilgrimage city under the Safavids. Nader Shah made it his capital in the 18th century.

Further south, Shahr-e Sukhteh, the "Burnt City" in Sistan, was a large Bronze Age town, and the Jiroft area of Kerman has yielded finds from the same era. Yazd and Kerman were caravan cities of the desert, living on long qanat tunnels that brought water from the mountains. Yazd was a haven during the Mongol invasion and became the main refuge of Zoroastrians as Iran became Muslim. Kerman was sacked by the Qajar founder Agha Mohammad Khan in 1794, and Bam's citadel, occupied for centuries, was largely abandoned in the 19th century.

In the 20th century the east was drawn into the modern state, and a frontier agreed with British India in 1871 had already cut Baluchestan in two. Mashhad grew into Iran's second city on pilgrim traffic, and the south-east has long been one of the country's poorest and least secure corners. In December 2003 an earthquake destroyed much of Bam, killing more than 26,000 people.

Mashhad is dominated by the shrine, whose foundation, Astan Quds Razavi, is one of Iran's largest economic institutions. Millions of pilgrims arrive each year from Iran and abroad, and the city's rhythm follows the religious calendar. Khorasan's music of the bakhshis, bards who sing epics and love stories to the two-stringed dotar, is recognised by UNESCO as intangible heritage, and the north is home to Kurmanji-speaking Kurds and Turkmen as well as Persians.

Yazd keeps Iran's most visible Zoroastrian community, with fire temples, its own calendar of festivals and a pilgrimage each June to the mountain shrine of Chak Chak. Yazdis have a reputation for hard work, piety and thrift, and the city's silk and textile weaving, like Kerman's carpets and embroidered pateh cloth, has a long history. Kerman is also the home of the Sufi order associated with Shah Nematollah Vali, whose shrine is at Mahan.

Sistan and Baluchestan is culturally distinct: most people are Baluch, speak Balochi, and are Sunni, with tribal ties across the Pakistani border, and men wear the long shirt and wide trousers of the region. Baluch women's needlework, with dense geometric embroidery, is prized.

Mashhad has more than three million people and is Iran's second city. Kerman, Zahedan and Yazd each have more than half a million, and Bojnurd, Birjand, Sabzevar, Nishapur, Rafsanjan and Chabahar are the other main towns.

Pilgrimage drives Mashhad's economy, alongside food processing and car manufacturing. Khorasan is famous for its saffron, and South Khorasan for barberries. Kerman province grows pistachios, above all around Rafsanjan, and has major copper mining at Sarcheshmeh. Yazd is one of Iran's textile centres, and Chabahar, Iran's only oceanic port, is being developed.

Water scarcity shapes everything here: the qanats that sustained Yazd and Kerman for centuries are under strain, drought has cut pistachio harvests, and Sistan's Hamun wetlands have at times dried up almost completely. Life in the desert cities starts early and stops through the afternoon heat; Sistan and Baluchestan is Iran's poorest province.

Mashhad's pilgrims eat sholeh mashhadi, a thick porridge of meat, grains and spices. The city's shops sell saffron, barberries, dried fruit and nabat, crystallised sugar, often flavoured with saffron, which is dissolved in tea. Khorasan's saffron colours rice dishes across Iran.

Yazd is a city of sweets. Its bakeries make qottab, deep-fried pastries filled with ground almonds and sugar and dusted with icing sugar; cake yazdi, small cardamom-scented muffins; and baklava, along with pashmak candyfloss. Kerman is known for kolompeh, a round pastry filled with dates and cardamom, while the pistachios of Rafsanjan are eaten fresh in autumn and roasted all year, and Bam's dates are famous across Iran.

The Baluch kitchen is different again: sajji, lamb seasoned with salt and roasted slowly, fish and dates on the coast, and flatbreads cooked on a griddle. Across the region tea is the constant drink, and in Yazd and Kerman chilled drinks of rosewater and sweet basil seeds help through the heat.

In Khorasan, Mashhad's shrine of Imam Reza — a city within the city of courtyards, gold domes and mirrored halls, parts of it closed to non-Muslims — is the main sight, with Nader Shah's mausoleum nearby. Tus has Ferdowsi's tomb, and Nishapur the tombs of Omar Khayyam and the poet Attar.

Yazd's historic city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with the tall portal of the Friday Mosque, the Amir Chakhmaq complex, badgir wind towers across the skyline, the Zoroastrian fire temple and the Towers of Silence on the city's edge. The Dowlatabad garden has one of the tallest windcatchers in Iran, and nearby are the mud-brick towns of Meybod and Kharanaq and the shrine of Chak Chak.

Kerman has its bazaar and the Ganjali Khan complex, and at Mahan the shrine of Shah Nematollah Vali and the terraced Shazdeh garden. East of Kerman, the Dasht-e Lut is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, reached via Shahdad for its kaluts, dunes and salt flats. Bam's citadel, the heart of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is being rebuilt in mud brick after 2003, and Rayen has a smaller, intact citadel.

In Sistan and Baluchestan, Shahr-e Sukhteh is a UNESCO site near Zabol, and the Baluch coast around Chabahar has eroded hills and fishing villages.