End here?!

The family tale is a long and sad one. One i have decided to keep myself. Just to finish what i wanted to say i have attached a picture of my grandfather's father with his brother Mohamad Hussein in St. Petersburg the picture was taken in 1910 according to my grandfather. It was before the world war before things get so awful Iranian constitutional revolution has just succeeded . Mohamad Hussein at the time was a member of Iranian parliament and a very charismatic leader he is sitting here.my dad's grandfather is standing to the right wearing a white pocket square in the corner next to his brother. four years later just before the great war he meets his wife. with the revolution the family was forced to leave Russia his father in law was a memeber of the white army fighting against reds he was killed in action near Moscow and many things happned. My grandfather father eventually died in 1930s of pneumonia in north of iran ( the only time i have seen my dad showing any interest in his family was when we met a friend of my grandfather mr. Stephan Malian they were kindergarden classmates he told me my grandfather'sfather was a very kind hearted man, while he was walking on the street he saw a homeless man frizing to death so he gave him his jacket the next day he got sick and died soon after) leaving a wife and children they lived in paris again living in an apartment at Quai louis Blério number 8. A pretty big apt with french std an entire floor but i wouldnt think it was impressive coming from Iran. The apt stayed in my family until three years ago when my aunt decided to sell it and so did my father.

My grandfather went to Germany to study engineering in 1936 he finished his school just before war get serious. the family didnt stay in occupied france came back to iran via germany in 1941 before iran becomes occupid as well. they came back to iran my great gandmother learned farsi tho she could never speak without accent. We have her voice tapped on an old gramaphone or wat ever u call that. my grandfather had a brother, a playboy in nature a very handsome man name Ghasem. He was a wonderful skier and represented iran in 1952 winter olympics we have many pictures of him left in the family. the young man who was just born to live and have fun died in a car accident just before my dad was born in 1959 . my grandfather joined the UN and lived in Europ mostly Netherlands. He married an iranian version of Ingrid Bergman, my grandmother who was hardly 20 at the time my grandfather being 38. they had an amazing life together and i truly think they were deeply in love until the very end. My grandmother was the youngest of an old family called Bavand ( believing that their family is related to the house of bavand ) was very spoiled and hard to deal with. My grandfather on the other hand was a true gentleman and nice toward her listening to all her stupid complians and man how much i loved seeing how he treats her with such respect. Anyhow the worst part was that she couldnt cook anything she still cant so the family sent her nanny and her cook with her another reason for why she never learned. However she could make some amazing iranian deserts very well things like all sort of jams Halva sholezard. My grandfather died in 1997 winter of that year my grandmother lives btw new york and Los Angles where my aunt moved from New york after 9/11. i hardly call her but she still does call me often. i am an awful person am i not?

a great deal of family wealth was lost thro the years my grandfather was a founding member of " Kafshe Melli" he built several factories in iran after he left UN in 1968 namly " Charm e hamedan" he has always been sympathetic toward Mossadegh so he never tried politics in the years after. With the down of Pahlavi my family was in toruble again. my grandfather;s cousin was an army general Nader Jahanbani with the nickname the blue eyed general was excuted a

month after my grandfather was in NY at the time with my aunt recently addmited to Cornell

didnt come back to iran. my dad and his brother Reza stayed in Iran when the young Reza became very political my dad being older brother asked my grandfather to arragne smth for Reza to leave iran ASAP but my grandfather didnt predict things to take such sharp turn and when they acted the 1981-2 mass excutionss came where the young Reza , also became the victim of at the age of 17. Reza was a smart boy with deep Hazel eyes and very light brown hair almost ginger. I was named after him. His death was the final hit on the family my grandfather had a heart attack soon after when he came back to iran it was too late. his factories were taken by the government my dad spent the next 7 years in the army during the war. His death in 1997 was in a way end of an era. And as Beyhaghi the iranian historian said in the 9th century.

This was the detailed description of the sons of hassan's life so the future generations learn.

و چنين بود احوال قوم بوحسن تا آيندگان عبرت گيرند

i wanted to write more in detail but i guess there is no point i miss my grandfather and that is it. i dont care about any thing except for him. how wonderfuly he talked in this old persian. He cared so much about people. he would alwyas help everyone.

From Rags to riches

My great-grandfather Haj Hassan came from a very humble background. His father was a traditional banker he would get money from people and you would be able to get the same money in a different city almost like a money exchange store. when he was young his father died and his family was left with debts. He left his city Isfahan to the capital of Qajar's Tehran where he could start a new life. At the age of twenty he had a small shop in tehran bazar where he met a greek merchandiser who was representing a british company called Ralli & Angelasto back then Iran or as it was called Persia was only famous for its carpet ( we are talking about pre-oil world 19th century ) Ralli company as you can read about it in Sir Dennis Wright's Englishman among Iranians would export the much needed silk and other product needed for iran's carpet industry from Manchester and again export Persian carpet to the west. This was a great start for him Haj Hassan learned all about international bussiness under this man and then later he started his own business. These are such ancient history that i dont care about much. He was a very smart man. In a way he was one of the founding memebrs of international muslim brotherhood he was the man financially supporting Seyed Jamal Al Din Assadabadi the muslim thinker. ( back then muslim brtherhood was mostly an anti-imprialist thing we are talking pre-communism days)

He branched his business to all corners of the the world he had offices in London, HongKong Marsaille Paris Moscow and even NewYork. I read a document by Hong Kong Shanghai bank ( what we know as HSBC today ) that he was the biggest exporter of Opuim to China for several years. He was also very interested in science he travled to much of Europ and tried to bring great things with him. he was a founding member of iranian Royal science academy. Ohh where did the family name come from?

He became the dominant figure of Middle eastern business people at the time he was probably one of the richest man in the world, Russian Imprial bank estimated his wealth to be close to 100s of million Robles. His influence and wealth was to the extend that he started minting iranian coins. ( you can see how things werent in order back then ) as a result he was given the unusal title of Amin Al Zarb ( the man trusted with minting ) most Qajar titles were a combination of certain words, such as Dole ( memeber of the governing body ) Saltaneh ( related to royals ) mamalek ( mostly given to land oweners ) very few however were exception mostly given to the most influential people of their time : Sepahsalar ( the greatest of the army given to Mohamd taghi khan Tonekaboni ) Farmanfarma ( given to abdulhossein mirza one of the most important figures of iranian history and the man who owned half the lands in iran) and finally Amin Al Zarb my great grandfather.

anyhow apparently he was a philanthropist too , he bought large amount of wheat and gave people of tehran for free during the 1890 famine.

His Memoire was published in English few years ago by Shirin mahdavi one of my distant relatives. much of it is about how he feels toward his country and how he wants it to advance and change. He surly tried hard to do so by brining the first Railway to iran the first suger factory . he was alsso the man who brought electircity.

he died in 1897 if i am correct and left his empire to three sons one being my father's grandfather Hossein and another his famous brother Mohammad Hussein.

Family

For a long time i have been thinking about writing about my family. For many reasons i stopped to do so. i could never write about it on facebook. My blog on the other hand is more private and confidential. When i instantly decided to write the last post i came to realize that i begun to forget many things mostly stories i have heard from my grandfather ( my dad never talks about anything that happned to him in past or our family, he just hates the fact that things arent the way they used to be)
The fact that i have spent most of my childhood with my late grandfather explains why i am the person i am. I AM SO OLD FASHIONED. it is painful for me i can not c connect to others. even the ones i want to, do not understand me. I have to hide much of myself things that are important. i will sound like i am pretentious if i talk about them. YEs i am so proud of them I am so proud of my family. thanks to the past 30 years of islamic republic rule over Iran my family became smaller and smaller my dad is pretty much the last member of the once Amin al zarb family living in Iran. The next few posts wont be historically accurate i try to read on the subject and people as i write but then most of them is based on the stories and memories i have heard from my grandfather many years ago.
i grow up in a way that i felt almost ashamed toward my past the glories past. my moms family had strong ties to the current government of iran so they made me feel ashamed of my fathers family. so many sad things happened to my dad in the 1980s that he tried to forget all about the good old days. almost as Shakespeare said :


"O, no! the apprehension of the good, Gives but the greater feeling to the worse."

Pictures of my beloved grandfather in Hague

Probably one of the most significant things that happned in iranian history happned in the hauge Holland international court of justice where iran won the right to nationalize its oil industry. My beloved grandfather Mohmmad Mahdavi Esfahani was a memeber of iranian diplomatic delagation today i have received a series of picture my aunt received from iran in an email. I have seen one or two pictures from that event in my late grandfathr's house the pictures were mostly taken by him so he is absent in most of them. id write about him he was a part of my life which i never wanted to share much of the man i am today is thanks to him. now i see him in these pictures so handsome and proud in the most important event that he talked about always my eyes fills with tears. he was an engineer and not a politician spent much of his life working for UN he could speak 7 languages which made him perfect candidate for this trip at the time he was stationed in Roterrdam when he was asked to join the group by then a respected politician Mozaffar Baghaei a man who sold himself two years later. Needless to say he joined the group knowing Dr.Mossadegh thro family his cousin Dr. Mohsen Mahdavi Aminolzarb i bealive was also a part of this group tho i cant see him in any of the pictures .
He was always a very well dressed man in the pictures he can be seen wearing a pair of white pocket squares ( I also wear them often ) here he must be around 31 making him probably the youngest member. he is second from right second row just behined dr. Mossadegh next to dr. Gholam hossein mossadegh. ahh how much i miss him .