Zeinab Pasha, the great female justice fighter

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.

How to reach Tabriz

If you want to directly come to Tabriz from Europe, a convenient option is to change flights in Istanbul. There are regular flights from Istanbul to Tabriz airport. Information about flights to and from Tabriz airport can be found here. As you see, there are flights from Tabriz to other touristic beautiful cities of Iran like Isfahan, Shiraz, Kish,  Mashhad and Ahvaz as well as industrial and commercial sites in Iran like Asalooye and Mahshahr. There are direct flights to Tabriz from Dubai and Baku and a couple of other cities.

Of course there are also several flights to Tehran everyday from Tabriz but I want to suggest you another route to travel between Tabriz and Tehran which in my opinion for a tourist who wants to explore Iran is more interesting. There is a high-way between Tehran and Tabriz. Distance is about 700 km. It is not common in Iran to rent a car but there are very modern and comfortable buses travelling between Tehran and other major cities like Tabriz, Isfahan and Shiraz. You should ask for so-called VIP buses.

If you come from Tehran to Tabriz I suggest you to stop for a few days in Zanjan, too. Zanjan is a very beautiful city. It has interesting places to visit, including Soltanieh dome and Katale-khor cave.  From Zanjan to Tabriz if you take the high-way you will see the colorful hills such as the one below.

If instead of the highway you take the old road, you pass city of Miyane and you will encounter the following bridge which is known as "Ghiz Korpusi" in Azarbaijani Turkish which is also known as "Pole-dokhtar" in Farsi. Both mean "Girl's bridge." I do not know when and by whom the bridge is built in the first place but I know that a Tabrizi Princess in 14th century has had it repaired and maintained. In 14th and 15th century, Tabriz was the capital of Kara Koyunlu dynasty. Several monuments remain from that dynasty that have been commissioned by  queens and pricesses of that dynasty. There are even smaller ones donated by rich female merchans of that era.   Because of its strategic importance, the middle part of the bridge was exploded by a mine in 20th century after WWII.

Closer to Tabriz you will visit this beautiful lake called "Ghuri Ghol."

From biological point of view, this lake is important. It houses 92 species of birds and several species of mammals and reptiles. Some of the birds emigrate to this lake from as far as Siberia. Some of these species are in the danger of extinction and are therefore protected. Last year a new bacteria was found in the lake. The bacteria was called "Alishewanella Tabrizica." Half jokingly, in honor of "Alishewanella Tabrizica", I celeberated by throwing a reception in my workplace which is a research institute of physics (not biology!)