Iranians looking for a taste of freedom resort to skiing
On the slopes, there's little worry about segregation and
dress codes.
By Barbara Demick
The Inquirer
March 29, 1999
SHIMSHEK, Iran -- Squinting into the winter light, Zahra Saveh-Shim
sheki clomped out of the lodge in her chunky ski boots. She wore a tasseled
woolen cap, a royal-blue parka, and a giddy smile of anticipation.
"Out here, on my skis, I'm as free as the boys," said Saveh-Shimsheki,
19, a member of Iran's women's ski team. Freedom is one reason that skiing
has become the passion of affluent Iranians. On the slopes, women wear
more or less the same clothing as the men, a rare privilege in a country
where female bicyclists, for example, have to wear calf-length coats and
head scarves.
Some of the most avid skiers are young, independent-minded women. At
the ski resort in Shimshek, a 90-minute drive north from Tehran, they seem
to swagger about in their pink lip gloss and bright ski outfits, exhilarated
by the freedom.
"By its nature, skiing is a covered sport. It's cold so that ski
clothes are concealing, and you don't have the same issues that you do
with other sports," said Afsaneh Shimsheki, 40, head of the Iranian
Women's Ski Federation.
Families also appreciate the opportunity to ski together. In Iran,
most sports are strictly gender segregated -- from swimming at the beach
to biking in the park. Although men and women have to ride up on separate
chairlifts at Shimshek, once deposited on the slopes, they are free to
ski down together.
Ali Ghaedi, the father of two daughters, ages 14 and 17, said he started
them skiing a few years ago because it was one of the few outdoor sports
that he could do with them. "There are no restrictions on the girls.
When they come here, they feel a lot better. It builds their self-confidence,"
said Ghaedi, a businessman who had driven up for the day from Tehran.
The jaggedly beautiful Alborz Mountains, with a peak of more than 12,000
feet, rise abruptly to the north of the flat plain on which Tehran is built.
For city residents, the mountains are a popular getaway from the heat and
dust -- and the strictures of life in an Islamic state. For years, the
more affluent neighborhoods of Tehran have emptied on weekends, their inhabitants
heading to the hills to breathe more freely. Since the 1997 election of
reformer Mohammad Khatami as president, Iranians have been more eager than
ever to push the rules to have a good time. During a recent weekend day,
crisp winter sunshine beating down on the slopes, there was a party atmosphere
on the sundeck at Shimshek. Young men and women flirted openly as they
sipped from cans of nonalcoholic beer and cups of hot chocolate. "This
is one of the friendliest slopes around. There are no baseeji," said
Maziar, 24, a student, referring to the religious youth who patrol parks
and other public places looking for infractions of the strict Islamic rules.
He and two female friends, glamorously urbane in dark sunglasses as
they lolled in canvas deck chairs, said they go to the resort not for the
skiing but for the atmosphere.
"I feel like I'm in Europe," Maziar said. "Where else
in Iran can you be so relaxed?"
Returning from the slopes, Carine Legarrac, 24, a French flight attendant
who works in Dubai for United Emirates Air, praised the European atmosphere
-- and the Iranian prices.
"There is nowhere else in the Middle East where you can find skiing
of this quality," she said. "I grew up in the Alps, and I would
say that this place is quite decent for serious skiers."
Skiing was brought to Shimshek in the 1950s by German engineers working
in nearby coal mines. The mines have closed, but the resort, which opened
in 1959, has sustained the village ever since.
Even though the resort lost most of its foreign tourists after the
Islamic revolution of 1979, day trippers from Tehran keep the business
going. During peak season, such as the Iranian New Year, which started
March 21, Shimshek gets up to 1,700 skiers a day.
(Shimshek continues to produce some of Iran's best skiers, as demonstrated
by the fact that so many professionals have the surname Shimsheki, indicating
the town is their ancestral home.)
The resort even has something of an official endorsement from Iran's
Islamic authorities. Above a chairlift is a billboard of the spiritual
leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni with the quote: "I consider sport as
a necessity for the health of everyone's mind and body. . . ."
Despite poor snowfall this year, resort manager Aghiel Kia-Shimsheki
said skiing was a booming business.
"We have more and more people taking skiing lessons," Kia-Shimsheki
said. "The beginner's classes are full. Parents send even the littlest
ones on buses from the city to learn to ski."
Among athletic officials, there is keen interest in developing women's
skiing as an international competitive sport. Iran's strict dress codes
and gender segregation have limited women's participation to shooting,
rowing and skiing.
In the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the Iranian team drew worldwide
attention when its only female member, shooter Lida Fariman, carried the
Iranian flag while dressed in full Islamic attire. She finished, however,
46th among 49 competitors in target shooting; some Iranian athletes grumbled
that the restrictive clothing impeded her performance.
Although Iranian women do play such indoor sports as volleyball in
shorts and T-shirts, the games are off-limits to men -- which rules out
these athletes' participation in international games.
Tahereh Taherian, an official of Iran's Olympic Committee, notes that
Iranian women have participated in Asian Game matches in Korea and China
and have done better than the Iranian men.
"Skiing, we believe, is one area in which women can compete,"
Taherian said. "There is really no difference between the way you
ski and we ski. It's done in normal clothing. If you see how Iranians love
their skiing, it is really very promising."
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