Stephen Orth: Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a Hidden World

This simple appeal didn’t please all viewers. “They were all arrested,” says Setareh. The police only took six hours from the beginning of their investigations until the arrests. They were accused of violating Islamic morals and customs, and they spent three days in prison. A few days ago, while I was touring northern Iran, they were freed on bail. Later they were sentenced to six months in prison and ninety-one lashes, albeit on probation. Tehran’s chief of police, Hossein Sajedinia, used the publicity as a warning to Iran’s youth, as if to say: “The police are alert and always ready to act against those of you not conforming to the social norms.” The video was suddenly no longer available on YouTube. “Iran is a country where being ‘happy’ is a crime,” tweeted the well-known journalist Golnaz Esfandiari.

Young people are in the majority. Forty-four million Iranians, 60 per cent of the total population, are under thirty. I have met only a few dozen of them. My travels are not a representative survey but encounters with a select group, a group who speaks English, is interested in travel and life in the West, and striving for more freedom. A group who has developed a remarkable routine of breaching laws despite the threat of draconian punishment. Never in the thirty-five years of the Islamic Republic have there been so many of them.

Their social revolution takes place behind closed doors. And in the digital world. Flirting on Viber, putting their headscarves aside on Facebook, posting scandalous clips on YouTube. The Internet allows more freedom than reality does. It is still an escape from the public arena, but at some stage, testing the boundaries online will appeal so much that they can no longer accept being contained offline. “The change in Iran must come peacefully and from within,” [2] Ebadi, Shirin. Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope . New York: Random House, 2006, p. 204. wrote the Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.

I have the impression that the young Iranians haven’t yet realized the power potential provided by sheer numbers and that they have a real chance to transform their country.

I go to the window. Behind me the party is in full swing, but I block it out for a short while just to observe the cardboard-box skyline of the city. Tens of thousands of apartment blocks, with shuttered windows and locked doors, visual barriers behind which the craziest and most normal things in the world take place every day. Maybe somewhere a flight dispatcher plays Flight Simulator , a dominatrix binds her slaves, a graphic design teacher visits friends for an evening meal, a fishing boat owner sings a melancholic song, an engineer hops around in the kitchen trying to catch a bird, a war vet plays backgammon, a prince treats himself to another glass of wine, a nature boy sorts saffron blossoms, a pretty student has a date in the living room, a truck driver listens to Modern Talking, an English teacher types into his computer the invitations to the next Dead Poets Society meeting.

Midday tomorrow I will board a plane. TK875 to Istanbul, back to the future, 621 years forward. I will show my German passport, check my backpack, and drink my last bottle of Delster. Then I’m out, back to a world where no one has to be afraid of being arrested for a trifle, where no one is forced to follow a particular religion, where normality isn’t a game of hide-and-seek.

On the plane I will have a hangover from the schnapps and the catchy melody of “Happy” buzzing around in my head. The Tehran video clip was only briefly offline; now it is again accessible. More than 2 million people all round the world have already seen it, and the number increases every day. No one can sentence the dancers a second time.

They have won.

I WOULD LIKE TOwarmly thank the following people, without whom this book would not have been possible: Yasmin in Tehran, Masoud on Kish, Hussein in Kerman, Saeed in Shiraz, Ahmad in Bushehr, Marjan in Bushehr, Farshad in Ahvaz, Hamed and Ashkan in Khorramabad, Azim and Susan in Kermanshah, Ehsan in Marivan, Shahin and Mona in Hamedan, Ahmad in Isfahan, Sofia in Isfahan, Mellid in Isfahan, Massi in Isfahan, Elaheh in Mashhad, Azadeh in Babol, Saeed in Chalus, Funman Mohamed in Abbas Abad, Azim and Nilo in Choubar, Hussein in Ardabil, Reza in Tehran, Shahab in Tehran, Venus in Tehran, Kian on Qeshm, Setareh in Tehran, Fardad, Hamed, Babak, Sahar, Mina, Arash, Negar, Anita, Maryam, Ali, Mohsen, Abbas, Marzieh, Helaleh, Narjes, Pedram, Sahar and Nazanin, Laila, Anastasiya Izhak, Rüdiger Ditz, Mina Esfandiari (minaesfandiari.com), Martina Klüver, Bettina Feldweg, Jule Fischer, Samuel Zuder (samuelzuder.com), Marina and Yiannis of Marili Apartments on Paros (marili-studios.gr), Nora Reinhardt, Katrin Schmiedekampf, Stefan Schultz, Azadeh F. Parsi, Verena Töpper, Anja Tiedge, Nasser Manouchehri, Marouso Triantafyllou, Aysegül Eraslan, Ben Wadewitz, Annette Schneider, Clemens Sehi (anekdotique.de), Johannes Klaus (reisedepeschen.de), the Goethe-Institut, Antje Blinda, Lena Hinz, Kitty Liu, Tom Hillenbrand, Philip Laubach-Kiani, Astrid Därr, Anja Lange, Tonia Sorrentino, Bianca Bontempo, Mareike Engelken, Melanie Maier, Anouk Joester, Janine Borse, Hallie Gu, Christian Byfield, my parents.

Couchsurfing in Iran: My Journeys Behind Closed Doors on Facebook: www.facebook.com/couchsurfingimiranand on Instagram: couchsurfingiranwww.travelepisodes.com/reise/couchsurfing-im-iran/

STEPHAN ORTHis a travel writer based in Hamburg, Germany. His three books, Sorry, We Missed the Runway, Couchsurfing in Iran and Couchsurfing in Russia , have all been major bestsellers in Germany. They have been translated into ten foreign languages. Two of his feature stories, one about Russia and one about China, won the Columbus Award for travel writers.

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Couchsurfing im Iran: Meine Reise hinter verschlossene Türen

© 2015 by Piper Verlag GmbH, München/Berlin.

First Published in the English Language by Greystone Books Ltd.

The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut, which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Copyright © Stephan Orth 2015

Translation © Jamie McIntosh 2017

This edition published in 2018

Stephan Orth asserts his right to be known as the author of this work.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.