Masouleh, A Village Flying in the Mist

An Iranian citizen journalist, who writes under a pseudonym to protect his identity, wrote the following article on the ground inside Iran.

Man and nature have come together in a beautiful way in the northern Iranian village of Masouleh. The village, which frequently disappears from sight in the mist and is a short distance from the scenic Caspian Sea coastline, is 1000 meters above sea level and built along a long and winding slope.

The surrounding high-rising Alborz Mountains, which lock in moisture blowing in from the Caspian Sea – a moistness that nourishes the forests surrounding Masouleh – causes low-hanging cloud to settle around the village, shrouding it in mystery.

But what really makes this a place of wonder is the landscape’s natural beauty combined with the village’s man-made architecture. It makes for something truly astonishing. In this village, the roofs of low houses also make up the courtyards of buildings higher up and parts of public walkways.

The pictures you see here — and they just a small selection — show how breathtakingly beautiful Masouleh is, and much more convincingly than words ever could. As Sohrab Sepehri, the well-loved modern Iranian poet, once said: "We came here to write, but Masouleh can’t be written, Masouleh should be seen."

According to historians, records of the first Masouleh community go back as far as a thousand years. But it was only several hundred years later that the Masouleh people moved to what is modern-day Masouleh when they were forced to flee persecution and an epidemic that threatened to exterminate them.

Only 556 people, officially, make up Masouleh’s population, according to a 2006 census. Yet, at the turn of the century, they were twice as many; Masouleh was a market town for the surrounding region at the time. Despite this, the village continues to receive thousands of tourists every year.

Masouleh was registered as a National Heritage Site in 1975 and will be a UNESCO Historical Heritage Site as of September 2015.

“Masouleh is the site of the UNESCO/Iran Touring and Tourism Organization project,” says UNESCO. “This aims to promote community participation in the area’s tourism development, helping to generate employment opportunities and income-generating activities for local people.”

Mostafa Yekrangi, Citizen-Journalist, Rasht

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