Zanjan
— — the slow shine a knifesmith leaves on a blade.
Not only on a wall.
“A provincial capital on the old road from Tehran to Tabriz, sitting on a plateau near 1,663 metres. Zanjan is a city of makers. The bazaar is still where the charoq sandals and the filigreed malileh silverwork come from, and the chaqu knife trade has run here for centuries. South of town the brick dome of Soltaniyeh, finished in 1312, stands by itself on a dry plain. The light on the bazaar's vaulted ceilings goes long and dusty in late afternoon.
Zanjan, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Zanjan is the capital of Zanjan Province in northwest Iran, sitting on a high plateau near 1,663 metres about 330 kilometres northwest of Tehran on the route to Tabriz. The city has roughly 540,000 residents and is the trade centre for a region of wheat, grapes, and the famous Zanjani sirish glue. Forty-two kilometres south, the Soltaniyeh Dome, completed in 1312 under the Ilkhanid ruler Öljaitü, is one of the largest brick domes in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2005. The Qajar-era Rakhtshooy-Khaneh (a public laundry, now an anthropology museum) anchors the old quarter.
What the city makes with its hands is the story. Zanjan is the home of Iranian malileh, a filigree silverwork tradition where wire is drawn down to hair thickness and twisted into lattice. The chaqu (Zanjani knife) has been forged here for at least four centuries, with workshops still operating in the Qeysarieh and Hadj-Mirbahaeddin bazaars. The charoq, a soft leather sandal once worn across the Iranian plateau, is still cut and stitched in shops a few minutes from the central mosque. The covered bazaar itself dates to the Qajar period.
Zanjan is reached by the Tehran-Tabriz freeway and the same rail line, with the trip from Tehran running about four hours by road. The covered bazaar and the Rakhtshooy-Khaneh anthropology museum sit within easy walking distance of each other in the old quarter. Soltaniyeh is a short drive southeast and pairs naturally with a Zanjan visit; the dome is open year-round but reads best in clear winter light when the brick warms against snow. Summers on the plateau are dry and the evenings cool quickly.