Tabriz Bazaar

The bazaar of Tabriz is a city within a city: a network of brick-vaulted lanes, halls and courtyards that has been one of the great markets of the Iranian world for centuries. Tabriz lay on routes between Iran, Anatolia and the Caucasus, and merchants from far afield traded here. The Historic Bazaar Complex was inscribed by UNESCO in 2010 and is often described as one of the largest covered bazaars in the world.

Its plan is built of three kinds of space. The rasteh are the long covered lanes, each traditionally given to one trade, goldsmiths in one, shoemakers in another. The timcheh are domed halls, some enormous, where wholesale merchants deal. The saray or caravanserais are courtyards ringed with two storeys of offices and storerooms. Small skylights pierce the brick vaults so that shafts of daylight fall across the goods.

Most of the present fabric dates from after a destructive earthquake in the eighteenth century, rebuilt and extended under the Qajars. The carpet halls are the place to linger: dealers unroll Tabriz and Heriz rugs on the floor of the Muzaffariyeh timcheh. The bazaar also played a part in public life, notably during the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11, when merchants shut their shops in protest. It remains a working market, not a museum.