Tehran Tehran Tehran The capital of Persia since 1789, Tehran has grown from a dusty backwater to a teeming metropolis of 800,000. In the last decade alone, Tehran has added 300,000 residents, many displaced by the earthquakes, monster attacks, and other consequences of the Serpentfall. And some of these new residents are here to play the secret game that Britain and Russia have played here–much to the distaste of Persians of all stripes–since the 19th century. But now the game is in new innings; played with a savage intensity here because Persia is almost the only court left for it. The Serpent Curtain lies across Europe, an impenetrable barrier. Turkey is surrounded by Soviet clients and conquests–and by suspicious Soviet guards. Central Asia and China are remote, plagued by warlords and bitter cold. But Persia borders Soviet territory directly, a border that moved much closer to Tehran after the Soviets annexed Persian Azerbaijan in 1946. Less than 200 miles from the expanded Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, Tehran has become Tbilisia veritable nest of spies. It draws those who would try to smuggle agents into the Soviet empire, and information out…and it draws those who would move the Soviet border yet again, all the way out to the PersianBaku Gulf and the doorstep of India.Tashkent T Stalinabad SSR A Ashgabad SSR Zanjan Tehran A S KabulSAADABAD NIAVARAN Damascus Baghdad P Evin TAJRISH Prison Red Air Force Isfahan Station SHEMIRAN I Telephone Jerusalem Abadan Exchange GHOLHAK British Mission and Cemetery R S Sample file P’ A Karachi S t Demavend J oun To M R Doshan Tappan MuscatTo Kand Airport Mehrabad Jiddah To Zanjan (Soviet Border) Aerodrome BombayTEHRAN N O DULAB Gondar A A Aden S Qul’eh Gabri Parthian Ruins SHAHRA RAYY Medieval Ruins To Garm Sar Salt Desert To Hamadan To Qom To Kavir 4 Tehran Tehran THE CHARACTER OF TEHRAN Tehran sits–and increasingly, sprawls–on the southern slopes of the Elburz Mountains, specifically Mount Demavend, an extinct volcano that towers 18,000 feet above sea level. It is an arid city with a climate similar to San Bernardino or Nevada: hot, dry summers and cold, dry winters. The northern sections of Tehran are higher and cooler, and thus wealthier and nicer, than the southern sections; in Tehran, money and power flow uphill. In general, the “new towns” for managers and professionals, and the country houses of the newly rich and powerful, will be on the northwest side of the city. The old rich live in Shemiran, a 19th-century northern suburb built around the Qajar shahs’ summer palace, now the Pahlavi dynasty’s palace complex. The workers’ suburbs, industrial plants (such as the new oil refinery put in after the War), and such grimy construction spread to the south and east. The original 13th-century trading fort, built after the Mongols destroyed the former Persian capital at Rayy, became the city center (most of the territory on the map). Reza Shah, who founded the Pahlavi dynasty in 1921, demolished the city wall, and drove wide, straight, tree-lined, Western- style boulevards through Tehran, flattening anything in their way. Hence, most of the buildings along these major avenues are only a few decades old, built in European style. On the older, crooked streets, and inside the bigger city blocks, the buildings display traditional Persian style: Money in Tehran thick walls, few windows on street level, and The currency of Persia is the rial. (100 dinars an inner courtyard and garden if possible. makes a rial.) The current exchange rate is 70 rials Tehran society also has a veneer of Western to the British pound, or 14 rials to the U.S. (or style and modernity: many Europeans and Texas) dollar. Prices in Tehran are higher than they are elsewhere in Persia, but they are still very low other Westerners live there, either oilmen compared to the Empire or America–for anything or expatriates of another kind, and both made locally, that is. A Tommy gun, a radio, or a Pahlavi Shahs have sponsored Westernizing piece of scientific gear costs its list price, in dollars reforms: ending the veil for women, selling or pounds. A meal, lodging (except at Western government property to private concerns, hotels), a tailored suit of clothes, or anything of land reforms to create a new middle class, and roughly medieval technology–lanterns, ropes, so on. However, the vast majority of Tehran’s hammers, saddles–costs its list price in rials. So an citizens, especially the new immigrants from average meal (cost $3) would cost 3 rials, or about Sample20 cents. file the countryside, are traditional Persians: religious, hospitable, poor, and suspicious This represents the “foreigner markup” that all of all things Western. Thus the visitor can Tehranis charge to all foreigners as simple patriotic see women in the height of Brazilian fashion good sense. Goods and services for Persians cost a third of their “foreigner price.” If heroes want checking their makeup in the midst of a to haggle, they can make an opposed Taunt test crowd of chador-clad wives going shopping; against the usual d8 for bazaar hounds; the price hear jazz from nightclub doorways and the comes down 10% for a win, and another 20% for call to prayer from minarets; smell industrial each raise. chemicals and sizzling kebabs. TEHRAN CITY LOCATIONS The following sections match the entries in theCity Location Table on p. 104 of Day After Ragnarok. Some of those entries are less immediately applicable to Tehran; we provide local variations and substitutions where needful. Gate/Checkpoint Reza Shah tore down the old city wall in the 1920s, along with most of the city’s twelve gates. The ones that survive are no longer used for any sort of traffic control, merely providing a looming architectural presence to the scene. 5 Tehran Tehran 35 37 N 41 LALEH PARK 4 25 27 24 61 1/2 MILE 1/2 MILE 38 AMIRE-ABAD AVENUE 26 53 AVENUE TAKHT-I-JAMSHID IMAZANDARAN ROAD 40 SHIRAZ AVENUE AVENUE GORGAN PARK OR THE OLD AVENUE SHEMIRAN GARDEN CITY 45 46 57 23 AVENUE SHAHREZA AVENUE SHAHREZA 3 MAKSOOS ROAD 13 DOSHAN TAPPAN 15 52 AIRPORT AVENUE FRANCE AVENUE TARASHT AVENUE SHAH 19 12 11 H AVENUE NADERI 39 10 60 AVENUE IBN-SINA AVENUE SHAHNAZ AVENUE SIMETRI AVENUE 33 2 29 5 42 16 18 9 AVENUE FARAH-ABAD 7 50 AVENUE HAFIX AVENUE PAHLAVI 30 17 AVENUE SAADI 8 AVENUE SEPAH FERDOWSI AVENUE 32 14 56 AVENUE AMIRKABIR AVENUE KHOSH AVENUE AVENUE NAVAB AVENUE 47 59 AVENUE DELGOSHA 34 AVENUE MORTAZAVI PARKISHAHR 49 AVENUE SHAHROKH 21 28 22 AVENUE BOOZARJOMEHRI51 Sample file AVENUE SIROOS OUDLAJAN 55 31 44 AVENUE SHAHBAZ 6 48 58 BAZAAR AVENUE AHANG AVENUE SHAHPOOR AVENUE KHAYYAM ARMENIAN QUARTER DULAB AVENUE KAZWIN AVENUE PAHLAVI AVENUE SARAB AVENUE MOWLAVI AVENUE SIMETRI AVENUE AVENUE SHIROKHORSHID 1. Abdolazim 17. Finance Ministry AVENUE MOWLAVI 33. National Museum 48. Russian Cemetery Cemetery 18. Ferdowsi Hotel of Art 49. Ruzbeh Hospital 2. Air Force HQ 19. French Embassy 34. National Post 50. Sepah-Selam 3. Ambassador Hotel 20. Gendarmerie HQ 20 Office Mosque 4. Amjadieh Stadium 21. Golestan Palace 35. Officer’s Club 51. Shahrbani HQ 5. Armament Works 22. Imamzadeh Yahya 36. Oil Refinery 52. Soviet Embassy 1 6. Armenian Shrine 54 37. Pahlavi Cavalry HQ 53. Spanish Embassy Cemetery 23. Indian Embassy 38. Pahlavi Hospital 54. Tabriz Teahouse 7. Army Staff College 24. Iraqi Embassy 39. Park Hotel 55. Takiyeh-e-Dawlat 8. Bagheshah Square 25. Jalalieh Race Track AVENUE ARAMGAH AVENUE SHOOSH 40. Persepolis Hotel 56. Tehran City Jail 9. Baharestan Square 26. Japanese Embassy 36 41. Plaza Hotel 57. Tehran University 10. Bank Melli 27. Khaiban Club 43 AVENUE SHOOSH 42. Power Station 58. Tobacco Factory 11. Brazilian Embassy 28. Logman Hospital AVENUE GHALEH MORGHI 43. Railway Square 59. Toopkhaneh 12. British Embassy 29. Majlis 44. Razi Square Square 13. Caravan Hotel 30. Marble Palace NATIONAL 45. Rhodes Univ. House 60. Turkish Embassy 14. City Hall 31. Masjid-e-Shah RAILWAY 46. Ritz Hotel 61. U.S. Embassy 15. Club Beirut 32. Museum of Persian STATION AVENUE SHAHBAZ 62 47. Royal Guard 62. Wireless Station 16. Defense Ministry Antiquities Division HQ 6 7.