Photos that you see belong to a Tabrizi woman famous as "Zeinab Pasha" who about 130 years ago fought for the rights of the poor and social justice. She had trained an army of female partisans and commanded them. Her tactics, her courage, her determination for the cause of establishing social justice and her mercy on those opponents who repented are immortalized in several  long ballads composed in Azarbaijani Turkish (the language spoken in Tabriz).  

According to these ballads, Zeinab Pasha started her combat for justice from this bridge in Tabriz which is called "Ghaari Korpi." Ghaari in Azarbaijani Turkish means "old lady." According to the urban legends this old bridge is built under the auspices of an old anonymous lady who demanded to remain unknown. From my early childhood, for an unknown reason, I loved this bridge. Anytime I visit my hometown I try to take another look at it. When I was a child cars passed over it but now it is open only for pedestrians. There is another bridge next to it called "Mansure korpusi" which is decorated by some horse statues.

 

When Zeinab Pasha got old, she traveled to Iraq for pilgrimage. Over there, bandits stopped their caravan. Most of the pilgrims in the caravan were women. In the common male-dominated terminology,  it would  be rephrased as "the pilgrims in the caravan were merely defenseless women!" Anyways, Zeinab Pasha who had become an old woman at that time confronted the bandits and the bandits were scared off and  escaped, leaving the caravan intact.

There is a beautiful museum in Tabriz called "House of constitution." It is one of the "must-sees" in Tabriz. You may read about this museum in this link. Tabriz had played a prominent role in the constitutional movement which took place 100 years ago. If you are interested in knowing more about this movement, see for example this link.  Here you can find some books on this great movement in amazon.com. Actually one of them is entitled "Letters from Tabriz."

The following is the statue of Zeinab Pasha located  in "House of constitution" in Tabriz.

  You will be surprised to find out that one of the freedom heroes whose statue is erected in the "house of constitution of Tabriz" is a young American. He was visiting Tabriz as a teacher around 110 years ago. When he found out people of Iran were fighting for freedom, he got enthusiastic and insisted on fighting along with them.

PS. To learn more about this American hero in Tabriz read this article.