shomal

In Persian, Shomal means North.
When I was a child, every time we planned a trip to a place with pleasant weather, we would say, “Let’s go to Shomal.”
It means the northern provinces of Iran: Mazandaran, Gilan, and Golestan, cities like Kelardasht, Ramsar, Rasht, Gorgan, Noor, Mahmoudabad, Tonekabon, Bandar Anzali, Masal, Namak Abrood, Babol, Lahijan, and Chalus. Places that always held a strange kind of beauty for me: green forests, misty mountains, endless roads filled with the scent of burnt wood and rain. The food, the rice, the kebabs, the fish, Shomal is an inseparable part of my childhood, and of every Iranian’s memory.