Sari, Iran

Sari /Sārī/ is one of the cities of current Iran (Persia) located north of the Albourz Mountains and on southern coast of Mazandaran Sea. It is the capital of Mazandaran.

It's population is estimated at 262,627. (It's estimated metropolitan populations is 568,214 as of 2006.) It has a land area of 5089 square kilometers. The word Sari is reminiscent of Sarouyeh, Son of Farkhan, the Great, King of Tabaristan.

Sari is one of the entertainment and sports centers of Iran.

Location

The Mazandaran Sea is north of Sari; north-east of the city is Neka. Qa'emshahr (Formerly known as: Shahi) is south-west, Juybar is to the north-west, and Kiyasar, Shahmirzad, and Semnan are south of Sari.

History

Early History

Excavations in Hutto cave give the evidence for existence of settlements around Sari as far back as more than 70th millennium BC. The Muslim historian Hamd Allah Mostoufi attributes the foundation of Sari to king Tahmoures Divband of the Pishdadi dynasty. Also native people of sari have a folklore that the city was populated at about 2nd millennium BC when Smith Kaveh (native of this city) revolted against tyranny of Arab Zahak. After that success, Fereidun of Pishdadi who thought that he was indebted to Kaveh choose this city to live near him until his death. For this reason, when Iraj (Son of Fereidun) was murdered by Touraj & Salam, they buried him here, Most of the people consider that Espahbod Tous-e Nouzar (great grandson of Fereidun) systematicly founded it as a city around 11th century BC. But recognition by Creek historians go back to at least 6th century BC (Achaemenid dynasty) when they recorded it as Zadrakarta which then destroyed by Alexander of Macedonia. However, he directed the construction of new city and they call it "Syrinx" after the name of his lieutenant general. The city was a regional capital again in Sassanid dynasty.

Becoming Capital of Tabaristan

In the seventh century, the great Farxan reconstructed it again, and because of his son's name was "Sarouyeh", he called it by this name. Sari became the capital of Tabaristan in that century.

After Mongols, Turks, Uzbeks, Turcoman attacked the city it lost it's high rank and was reduced to ashes from time to time.

Converting as a City of Persia

Because of the Shah Abbas I's mother was Saravi (actually Ashrafi), he merged Mazandaran to his empire, and built Farahabad town in the north of city and gardens in Ashrafi.
After the Safavid dynasty, nothing notable happened in Sari.

Becoming as Capital of Persian Empire

In early 19 century [[Agha Mohammad Khan|Agha Mohammad Shah]] proclaimed Sari as his imperial capital. Sari was the field of local wars in those years, which led to the transfer of the capital from Sari to Tehran by Fath Ali Shah.

Early 20 Century

Indubitably, the boost and advancement of development was found after Qajars period, Reza Shah Pahlavi changed it systematically as the Sari Train Station. Most of the streets, governmental buildings, ... are from that era. In World War II city was occupied by Soviet army. However they left it after the war.

After the Iran Revolution

The population of Sari altered generally after Iran's revolution in 1979. During the Iran-Iraq war period, the city hosted some war refugees and many of them remained after the war.

About Sari

The Clock Tower in the Clock Square ( Meydan-e-Sa'at ) which is located in the Sari downtown attracts many visitors and it has become the most famous landmark. Also Sari contains the tombs of the Muslim leaders Yahya and Zayn Al-Abedin, Emamzade-ye Abbas and Shazdeh Hussein from the 15th century.

Economy

The economy of Sari is based on food productions such as Cokes, milled rice, Yogurt, Doogh (a yogurt drink), canned meat, oilseed and exporting fruits especially oranges, lemons, etc.
Some of the companies in Sari like the wood and paper company, Sanaie Choub Kaqaz, and Pishraneh Electronics are famous in the Middle East region.
Sari has variable prices for buying properties. It allows anyone to have one home whenever most neighborhoods of city have quite expensive prices for purpose of buying properties, because of its healthy weather. The prices vary between 2,000,000 IR per square meter (buying useless house in cheap areas, or suburb) to more than 100,000,000 IR per square meter (buying a shop downtown)

Climate

Based on sari's 2005-2006 weather static information and comparing it with other Mazandaran cities weather static, shows that sari has average climate to other cities, it has also more sunny times from most major cities in Mazandaran, spring raining in sari are more than other cities however these years rainfall in sari is in decline.

colspan="12" | Rainfall Static in 2005 colspan="12" | Derived from Shewar Magazine, No:10, Page:44
Numbers are in millimeters.

style="background:#f9f9f9; text-align:center;" width="100%"
Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
70.2	38.7	64.3	62.6	49.9	41.9	33.9	34.8	62.2	68.8	126.8	121.9
style="background:#f9f9f9; text-align:left;" width="100%"

Districts of Sari

Sari contains the following major sections :
Azad Goleh, Bagher Abad,Booali & Posht-e-Hotel(Both located in Pasdaran Blvd.), Barbari Mahalleh, Bazaar-e Nargesiyeh, Bazaar-e Rooz, Chenar-Bon, Gol-Afshan, Golma, Kooy-e Azadi, Kooy-e DadGostari, Kooy-e Daneshgah, Kooy-e Djahad, Kooy-e Golha, Kooy-e-Karmandan, Kooy-e Mahyar, Kooy-e MirSarorozeh, Kooy-e Qelich, Lesani, Mehdi-Abad, Mirza-Zamani, Na'l-Bandan, No-Tekiyeh, Peyvandi, Pir Tekiyeh, Pol-e Gardan, Posht-e Nim-e Shaban, Posht-e Zendan, Rahband-e Dokhaniyat, Rahband-e Sangtarashan, Sang, Sari Kenar, Sarvineh Bagh, Seyyed AlShohada, Shafa, Shahband, Shazdeh Hossein, Shekar Abad, Tabaristan, Tavakkoli, Torki Mahalleh, Torkmen Mahalleh, etc.

Past districts

Sari's old city structure changed in first Pahlavi era, As new avenues and streets in the center of city are from that era, Sari in the qajar dynasty had these famous neighborhoods as listed below :
Afghoun Mahalleh, Bahar Abad, Balouchi Kheyl, Balouchi Mahalleh, Birameter (Bahram-Ottor), Chaleh Bagh, Dar Masdjed, Isfahouni Mahalleh, Kohneh Baq Shah, Kurd Mahalleh, Mir Mashad Mahalleh, Mir Sar Rozeh, Na'l Bandan, Naqareh Khaneh, Ossanlou Mahalleh, Paay-e Chenar, QelichLi Mahalleh, Sabzeh Meydan, Shazdeh Hossein, Shepesh Koshan, Shishehgar Mahalleh

Telephone area codes

Sari's area code is 151 ( +98151 outside of Iran ), Also sari has the internal area codes as shown below, three digits are the beginning of seven digit numbers, (for example 221-xxxx) :

22 System	23 System	24 System	32 System	34 - 37 System	38 System
221 Downtown Center (2003)D	233	243	321 North of Downtown (2004)A	340 NorthEast of Downtown (2006)D	381
222 Downtown Center (First)D	234	244	322 Far South (2005)D		382
225 NorthWest of Downtown (2005)D	235	245	323 South of Downtown (2002)D		383 Sari's Primary Industrial Town D
226 SouthWest of Downtown (2000)D	236	246	324 North of Downtown (1997)D		384 Dangesarak, Koula A
227 Far West (2002)D	237	247	325 North of Downtown (1998)D		385
	238	248	326 West of downtown (2003)D		387
			328 Far East (2000)A		388 Wood Industries
* Numbers in parentheses shows the year of phone office established. D = Digital System, A = Analog System

Population

The population density of some neighborhoods in downtime (for example: mirza-zamani, peyvandi, sang) is even more than 20,000 per square kilometers, Please note that before 1950 population of city in summers was less than winters, and this influenced estimations and if estimate was done in summer, less than actual may counted.

1808 = 21,000 est.
1827 = 19,000 est.
1832 = 20,000 est.
1850 = 15,000 est.
1856 = 9,000 est.
1872 = 15,500 est.
1874 = 16,000 est.
1883 = 16,100 est.
1905 = 25,000 est.
1923 = 35,000 est.
1956 = 26,278 cen.
1966 = 44,547 cen.
1976 = 70,753 cen.
1986 = 141,020 cen.
1996 = 195,882 cen.
2006 = 262,627 est.

People and Culture

The people who living in sari are known as saravis (or: Sariyan), The population of sari is mixed native saravis, native mazandaranis, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Afghans, and Turcoman.
There are a lot of foreign inhabitants, for example: [[German people|Germans]], Japanese, [[Russian people|Russians]], Arabs are living for purpose of working or trading. whenever today the name of neighborhoods that was calling by ethnic of its habitants are very low, in Qajar dynasty most neighborhoods were calling by the ethnics of immigrants from Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, isfahan, mashad, semnan and shahmirzad, shahrud, gorgan and other regions.
Sari is proud to have friendly inhabitants, Today sari is difference from past years, because there are a lot of immigrants in other countries that they are originally from sari, and there are a lot of people that would love to live in sari, Most of the People are speaking in Mazandarani language and saravi dialect. Sari was the living place of Georgian, Armenian, Zoroastrians, etc. but today the population of them are very low. Also Armenian language is usable by Armenian people, However all could understand and use Persian.
Sari_Train_Station.jpg|right|Sari Train Station from Pahlavi era.]]

Transportation

Get in

By Air

Sari is served by Dasht-e Naz international airport located in the northeast of city, Currently it has daily flights to Teheran (cost: 195000 IR), weekly flights to Mashhad, and Jeddah, Also season destinations to Isfahan, Kish Island and sometimes to other cities depending on requests.

By Train

City is also connected to Gorgan and Tehran with Shomal Rail Ways as major branch of Iran Rail Ways, Sari Train Station was the first station of Modern Iran Rail roads from pahlavi dynasty era, Currently there are three major passenger trains every day getting to Sari, if you would like coming to sari via Tehran train station, you may use gorgan destination train, only some major express trains have announcements in English that sari train is included, the cost for ticket is (34000 IR) and it takes 7 hours (Tehran-Sari) and 7h 30m (Sari-Tehran) because all of this way is in mountains. There are more than 60 years that sari's train arrives about 4 PM.

By Boat

Sari has Amir Abad port which is located in the southern coast of Mazandaran Sea.

By Car

Highways to shore and plainly cities in Mazandaran have been well developed after Iran-Iraq war, Sari area contains highway 62w which has Qa'emshahr destination and 62e which has Neka destination.

By Bus

There are five bus terminals, just one of them is most popular and known as Terminal-e Dowlat, other bus terminals are for traveling to the cities that approximately located in 150 kilometers far from Sari (Gorgan, Nowshahr & Chaloos, Kiyasar, etc.)

	By Train
Gorgan	153 Kilometers*	138 Kilometers	Neka, Behshahr, Gaz, Nokandeh, Gorgan
Bojnourd	-		Behshahr, Gorgan, Minoodasht, Ashkhaneh, Bojnourd
Mashad	1152 Kilometers*	730 Kilometers	Behshahr, Gorgan, Bonjnourd, Quchan, Mashad

Babol		45 Kilometers*	Qa'emshahr, Babol
Nowshahr		170 Kilometers	Jouybar, Babolsar, Fereydoon Kenar, Nour, Royan, Nowshahr
Lahidjan			Babolsar, Nour, Nowshahr, Shahsavar, Ramsar, Chaboksar, Lahidjan

	By Train	Via Savadkooh Road	Via Kiasar Road	Via Azadshahr Road	Via Haraz Road
Tehran	354 Kilometers*	270 Kilometers*	-	-	245 Kilometers
[[Semnan province\|Semnan]]	354 Kilometers*			-	-
Shahroud	555 Kilometers*				-

* Indicates that destination is actually near than what kilometers shows

Get around

Municipal structure of city lets everyone to using taxis with wide choices of ways or taxi systems including Ceremony Taxi, wireless taxi, airport or rail station taxi, telephony taxi, etc. Also it is possible that some people prefer to using city buses, City buses are served to connecting Sari's suburbs to the center of city because most of the sari's population are living in the suburbs, Although you must take care for crossing from one side to another side of streets, Sari has safety for walking even in the nights.
Mazandaran_Sea_Sari_City.jpg|right|Southern Coast of Mazandaran Sea viewed from Farrah Abad Shore.]]

Outdoors

City has balmy nature and wonderland, most major places are listed below while there are more than these places available, some of them are disjunctive usable.

Farah Abad Coast
Gohar Baran Coast
Darya Kenar Coast
Khezer Shahr Coast
Dehkadeh Aramesh Tourist Village
Tajan River Park
Zare' Forest Park
Salardareh Forest Park
Dasht-E-Naaz National Park
Pol-e-Gardan hiking trail
Nemashoun Lake
Lak-Dasht Lake
Soleyman-Tangeh Lake
Bam-e-Shahr Hill ( From this hill, You have great city panorama )
Abbassi Garden ( Behshahr )
Qor-Maraz ( Natural Spa, Neka )

Colleges and universities

Unlike today, Sari was the one of cultural cities in the history of iran, The scientific knowledge of saravis was high in the history, as pitter delavaleh and abet (and many other famous tourists) have been talked about it. Today Universities of city are listed below:

University of Agricultural
Sari University of Medical Sciences
University of Natural Science
Islamic Azad University of Sari
Imam Mohammad Bagher University of Technology
Sarian University of Higher Education
Payam-e-Noor
University of Tech & Engineering ( Khalil Moqadam )
University of Tarbiyat-e Modaress
Sama Technology Faculty of Azad University

Sports

There are many complexes serving sport features in sari, but strongly the number of them are very low, Also most of them have not complete features, Most popular of them are: Jahan-Pahlavan Takhti Sports complex which is located in Farhang street and Hashemi-Nassab Sports complex that located in the rail-way side autobahn and Montazeri Sports complex which is located in Shahband. Sari has Mottaqi football stadium which is seems to be useless today.

Wrestling

Sari was the birthplace of most popular wrestlers and athletics in the world and the host of 2006 World Wrestling Competitions.
It has one major field house, which is known as Seyyed Rasoul Hosseyni Coliseum, The excellent (or even exclusive) wrestling place in Iran.
These Saravis wrestlers below present have on numerous occasions won world titles, and most of them are well-known internationally.

Ali Pahnekallaiee
Asgari Mohamadian
Madjid Torkaman
Feyzollah Afjam

Culture and attractions

Although sari is most important cultural place in north of Iran, most of cultural buildings in sari were destroyed by earthquakes and some other reasons, But sari has been described as Safa City ( City of Curvet )
As notable there are Famous Houses such as Kolbadi House, Archeological sites including Hutto Cave(70th [[millennium BC]]), Kamarband Cave(70th millennium BC).
Also containing Resket Tower of Qaran era, '''Farrah-Abad Complex Place''' from the Safavid era.

Religious Places

Emamzadeh Yahya ( The son of Imam Moosa-ebn Jafar )
Emamzadeh Abbas ( The son of Imam Moosa-ebn Jafar )
Emamzadeh Abdollah, Koula
Masjed-e-Jaame' Mosque ( Constructed before Islam by Zoroastrian

people, Where many of important kings/heroes of Persia such as Iraj, Touraj, Salam, Fereidun, Sohrab (son of Rostam) that Ferdowsi remind them in shahnama are buried near of this place. )

Emam-Sajjad Mosque ( Formerly : Shah-Qazi, first was Marqad-'Ala-Adolleh School but Rostam Shah Qazi reconstruct it in 1169 and call it Shah-Qazi,Qaznavi era )
Haaj Mostafa Khan Mosque ( Sourteci )
Reza Khan Mosque ( Hozeh Elmiyeh )
Molla-Majd-Addin Place
Shazdeh-Hossein Place
Pahneh-Kalla Place.

Mayor of City

Mohammad Ghanbarpour

References

Sari, My Lovely City, Author: [http://www.alihessami.com/ Ali

Hessami], Year: 2006, 23965 Sari Primary Library

External Links

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