Rey city tour with Walking in the alleys south of Tehran

With Rey city tour, you can get acquainted with this old part of Tehran and its history, and in this article you will know this historical region better. It’s better to know Rey’s location first, then we will go to the past and talk about its historical points and attractions.

where is Rey?

If the residents of Tehran want to spend the weekend in the heart of history, one of the best areas is Rey, a city tour in the south of Tehran. Where you can see from the Late Neolithic to the Pahlavi era, antiquities and places where the most important events of history took place. In this report, these historical and archeological sites are introduced according to the historical schedule.

To start the Rey City Tour, you can go to Cheshmeh Ali Shahrari Where life has always been going on from a few thousand years BC until today, and until two years ago. A spring at the foot of the hill was boiling from the aquifer, but with the construction of Imam Ali Highway and the six-meter subway line, the spring water was blocked.

Unfortunately, this spring has now become a swamp where there is no news of young children swimming in the summer. The presence of a Qajar relief on the Sassanid relief indicates that this area was used as a royal resting place and Nakhjirgah.

Visitors see the Qajar relief and realize the historic nature of the area, but the importance of this area goes back to prehistoric times, because this area is one of the late Neolithic and Mesopotamian settlements and its pottery is kept in the Museum of Ancient Iran.

From the time of Mesopotamia until today, it has been one of the most important settlements that has been abandoned during short wars, but the sound of life inside it is always heard with the vibrancy of its inhabitants.

Rey in the old days

The old name of Ray is mentioned in Madi texts as Madragiana and is reminiscent of Madi city. Then in the inscription of Bistun Darius the Achaemenid, this city is mentioned as Raga, which shows its antiquity. The defensive wall of the city of Rey dates back to the Sassanid era, which is the base of the characteristic wall at the top of the hill in a small section.

A brick wall has been reconstructed with the unveiling of Gahgol in memory of the defensive wall of the castle next to it. It takes you through a few alleys and back alleys to a hill with wooden stairs. The name of the hill is Rashkan Fortress and it dates back to the Parthian period, but the pottery obtained and the construction of its walls date back to the Sassanid and early Islamic periods.

Sassanid Period

Another Sassanid area of Rey that is not happy today is called Qaleh Gabri, which is one of the castles and barracks of the Sassanid military era. Next to the green space at the foot of the castle, you can see tall brick walls covered with mud straw, which was once a safe place for the defense of the people of the city.

The existence of Sassanid Nakhjirgah, Rashkan military fortress and Gabri fort shows that the city of Rey was one of the important cities of the Sassanid era. Due to the fact that religion had become one of the pillars of power during the Sassanid era, many temples and fireplaces from this period have been left for us. So without a doubt, after seeing these remnants of the Sassanid era, you will be looking for a fire pit.

Shahreri Fire Temple is located on the Shahrari-Varamin road at the foot of Nizari, which used to have a water lagoon, and the doors of the fire porch opened on the lagoon and the soldier’s spaces. This wetland is still full of water in seasonal rains. Passing the wooden stairs, you will see a fire temple of the Sassanid Bahram, of which today only the space of the central room with side porches and collapsed ceilings and vestibules remains as a memory.

Cross the vestibule, you will reach the upper porches of the fire temple and you can see the reeds around the hill and enjoy this view for a few minutes and relax.

Sassanid and the importance of the city

The importance of the city in its Sassanid era caused the city to retain the title of its government base after the Arab invasion and domination of Iran. The governors and rulers of the city of Rey were appointed by the Umayyad dynasty and the kingdom of Rey was considered one of the important areas of that time.

Later, during the reign of al-Buwayh, local government was revived. Among its remaining constructions, we can mention the tomb complex of Shah Abdul Azim Hassani, which has an inscription from the same period and was added to its buildings until the Qajar and Pahlavi eras.

Apart from being a place for pilgrimage tourism, the area of Shah Abdolazim Tomb Complex. This is one of the most interesting places in the contemporary history of Iran. The assassination of Nasser al-Din Shah in Shah Abdul Azim and dozens of events related to the Constitutional Revolution took place here.

Shahreri was one of the first short-haul train destinations in Iran. The smoky car that Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar rode for the first time from the gate of Khorasan in Qayyam Square and got off at the last station of Shah Abdolazim to dispel the fear of the people of that time from this strange device and try the smoky car.

You may be interested to know that if you go to Shahreri by subway, the railway route of the trains of this station is the same as the old smoky car route, and now a train of the same smoky cars that had a lot of smoke has been placed in the yard of Shahrari metro station. The smoky car is aware and often goes unnoticed.

The cemetery complexwhich is another part of Rey city tour, also has the tombs of famous people, the tomb of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, the deputy of Farahani, the Qajar minister who was unjustly strangled in the garden of Negarestan, and Sattar Khan the Conqueror of Tehran and Abdolhossein Farmanfarmaeian are in the same complex.

This complex has valuable buildings from the Al-Buwayh, Safavid and Qajar eras with unique tiling, mirror work and plastering, and its main entrance to the market is related to the Safavid and Qajar eras.

Towers

Another famous city attractions in Rey city tour is the brick towers, all three of which have the characteristics of Seljuk buildings.

One is the Tughral tower, which faces the cemetery of Ibn Babavieh, named after the first Seljuk king, which was built in the green garden of Tughraliyeh Shahrari. The pleasant atmosphere of the small Tughraliyeh garden with the sound of birds and flowers inspires you with unparalleled peace. The tower functioned like a sundial and with its brick structures still stands in the city.

Other towers in the city of Rey are called Naqare Khaneh Tower or the Great Tower of Hope, which stands at the top of Tabarak Mountain on Aminabad Street. The distance of the stairs has always paved the way for you to go up and visit the tower. Built to be a place for the master or the bone after his death. The third tower site in the city of Rey, along the Naqarkhaneh Tower, is the Inanj Brick Tower, of which there are now ruins.

After seeing this tower, rest a little and now you can experience a pleasant sunset in the south of Tehran in a calm atmosphere from the top of Tabarak Mountain.

Other famous places in the city of Rey, where many celebrities rested in those years, are the cemetery of Ibn Bawiyah and Imamzadeh Abdullah, and usually the location of many historical and contemporary films for the cemetery space. Ibn Bawiyah is a monastery built during the reign of Fath Ali Shah Qajar. The tomb of Dr. Hossein Fatemi, one of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh’s companions, is in this tomb. It can be said that this is a good place to hear the stories of July 20, 1931.

Other celebrities are lying in the heart of the sanctuary, including Mohammad Ali Foroughi, Mohsen Foroughi, Hossein Behzad, Ali Akbar Dehkhoda, Ashrafuddin Hossein Gilani, Fakhr al-Dawlah, Gholamreza Takhti, etc., who are the weight of literature, painting, sports and contemporary Iranian history are.

Jalal Afshar, founder of the Karaj Museum of Zoology and Entomology and founder of Iranian plant science, Mohammad Ali Ebrat and Vahid Dastgerdi, Iranian musician Ali Akbar Shahnazi, the tombstone of the late Seyyed Ustad Jafar Shahidi and his wife, Lady Alieh Saeedi are other celebrities in Imamzadeh Cemetery. Abdullah is armed.

By taking the Rey city tour from Iran royal holidays, with a leader with knowledge of history and antiquity, you can both visit and enjoy the historical monuments of this region and hear more about the stories of successful contemporary men and women who rest on the ground.