In January 1942, Britain, America and the Soviet Union signed an agreement with Iran to respect its independence and to withdraw their troops within six months of the ending of the world war. In 1943 at the Tehran Conference, America reaffirmed this commitment, and on 13 September, the Allies reassured the Iranians that all foreign troops would leave by 2 March 1946. But when the war ended in 1945, the USSR refused to announce a timetable to withdraw its troops from the north-western Iranian provinces of East and West Azerbaijan where Soviet-supported autonomy movements of the Turkic tribes had developed, assisted by the Iranian Communist Tudeh Party which had in the meantime become influential in the region and had some parliamentary seats and in November, 1945, Azerbaijan declared independence but this Soviet puppet state lasted only one year, after the Soviet Russians finally withdrew its troops under international political pressure in May, 1946.
Up to 1935, "Iran " from the Proto-Iranian term "Aryānā", meaning "Land of the Aryans" , (the word "Ērān" having been found in a 3rd-century Sassanid inscription but the Parthian inscription that accompanies it uses the Parthian term "aryān" ) had always been called in the West "Persia", from the ancient Greek word "Persis" itself derived from "Pars" or "Fars", first used by the Iranian tribes themselves. It was Reza Shah Pahlavi who in 1935 first began to ask all foreigners to address his country officially by its traditional name of "Iran" instead of "Persia" but in 1959, Mohammad Shah Pahlavi, decreed that both "Persia" and "Iran" were acceptable and could be used interchangeably.
Mohammad Shah Pahlavi wanted to continue the reform policies of his father, but a power struggle soon erupted in 1951 between him and an older professional politician, the elected nationalistic Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who nationalized the oil industries although Mohammad Shah Pahlavi was opposed to it. An attempt was made to assassinate Mohammad Shah Pahlavi by the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party. He fled Iran but returned when Britain and America staged a military coup d'etat against Mossadegh in August 1953 and had him arrested by the pro-Shah armed forces. Thereafter, Mohammad Shah Pahlavi engineered some constitutional reforms which increased his powers, outlawing the Tudeh Party and strengthening the armed forces (which were his power base, as was the case of his father). To prevent further opposition and to gain popular support, Reza Shah Pahlavi instituted the so-called "White Revolution" in 1963, involving a wide ranging program of reforms for the elimination of illiteracy, huge infra-structure building projects, more women and workers rights etc.But at the same time he tightened his control of the country by relying more and more on the use of the secret police called "SAVAK" to suppress dissident voices, provoking opposition from intellectuals who wanted more democracy. His reforms also threatened the traditional authority of the religious leaders. It was obvious that Mohammad Shah Pahlavi saw himself as heir to the kings of ancient Iran: in 1971 he held a celebration of 2,500 years of the Persian monarchy and in 1976, he replaced the conventional western calendar (year 1355) with an "Imperial" calendar (year 2535) which began with the foundation of the Persian Empire over twenty-five centuries earlier. These actions were viewed as celebrating a pre-Islamic past, and resulted in more religious opposition by the clergy, particularly by the exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. All this eventually culminated in the Islamic Revolution of 1978 and 1979, which deposed him, dissolved the SAVAK and replaced it with the SAVAMA. According to American and exiled Iranian sources, the new regime is run by Gen. Hossein Fardoust, who was deputy chief of SAVAK under Mohammad Reza's reign, and a friend from boyhood of the deposed monarch. In January 1979, Mohammad Shah Pahlavi and his family fled the country, the Shah seeking medical treatment in Egypt, Mexico, the United States, and Panama, and finally resettled with his family in Egypt as a guest of Anwar Sadat, thus officially ending a 4,679-year-old monarchic tradition in Iran. Upon his death on July 27, 1980 his son Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi succeeded him in absentia as heir apparent to the Pahlavi dynasty. Reza Pahlavi and his wife now live in Potomac, Maryland, USA with three daughters.
This is a map at the entrance to the Sa'dabad Palace. The Palace in fact consists of some 18 castles or houses which were first used as a residence by the Qajar dynasty monarchs and their royal families in the 19th century. After an expansion of the compounds in the 1920's , Reza Shah Pahlavi used it as his residence. In the 1970's, his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi also moved there. But after the Iranian Revolution, some parts of the palace complex have been turned into various museums. However, the current presidential palace is still located adjacent to the Sa'dabad compound and the palace named "Kakhe malakeye madar" is used by the Iranian President to entertain foreign dignitaries. We visited two of such houses viz. White Castle or White House, now called the National Museum Castle and the Shahvand Castle, now called the Green Museum and also the palace gardens.
This is the President's residence
Another view of the same building
Part of the huge Palace Gardens
These are the legs of a statue of Mohammad Shah Pahlavi in front of the "White House" . The upper parts of the statue were destroyed following the Islamic Revolution of 1979
The White House or White Palace where the Pahlavis lived. It has 10 ceremonial halls. Its exterior is built in the style of German palaces and its interior in that of French palaces
This is a statue of one of the mythical heroes in Persian history. Where his arrow landed would be the boundary of ancient Persia.
The explanatory plaque in front of the White Palace
One of the bronze statues in the reception hall on the ground floor
The reception hall
The dining hall
The busts of the Pahlavis
More busts of the royal family
Is that Pan, the God of Wine?
The great banquet hall
One of the tables seen through the glass panes
Another table
Another bronze statue outside the banquet hall
The waiting room
Another part of the waiting room
An Indian elephant ?
another part of the bedroom
A schooner
a window on the staircase to the first floor looking out into the royal garden
A jaguar in the waiting hall
Chandeliers in the family room
The Royal Office
The billiard room
One of the hanging carpets in the room
guards on the door to the waiting room
A Chinese lion in the Royal Garden
Another Chinese lion there
A house in the garden
Another house in the royal garden
Frost on the Palace grounds
A royal path
Some gardeners taking a morning break
Fallen leaves everywhere give an impression of desolation
Some marsh grass in the garden
a stream by the side of the path
One of the many gates to the Palace
A relief on the side of one of the paths
Fallen leaf caught by dried up shoots
Leaves on the pool outside the Green Palace
More leaves
Sun behind the tree
A few new leaves sprouting amidst the general desolation
New and old
The billiard room
One of the hanging carpets in the room
guards on the door to the waiting room
A Chinese lion in the Royal Garden
Another Chinese lion there
A house in the garden
Another house in the royal garden
Frost on the Palace grounds
A royal path
Some gardeners taking a morning break
Fallen leaves everywhere give an impression of desolation
Some marsh grass in the garden
a stream by the side of the path
The Green Palace the chandeliers, glass wares, furniture, carpets, paintings, sculptures, mirrors, artworks and other decorations etc inside which were ten times more beautiful than those in the White Palace but unfortunately we are not allowed to take any photographs in there.
One of the many gates to the Palace
A relief on the side of one of the paths
Fallen leaf caught by dried up shoots
Leaves on the pool outside the Green Palace
More leaves
Sun behind the tree
A few new leaves sprouting amidst the general desolation
New and old
Now one can only imagine how it would look in summer with the sunlight reflecting from the sparkling surface of the water from its fountain green with the color of tree leaves surrounding it from all those trees on the path and the other side of the royal garden!
(To be cont'd)
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