[continued from previous message]   
      
   by his part-time maid. That points to possible spy activities in his   
   background. He may've been involved in pro-Soviet activities. And this   
   was still 1950s.   
      
    From then on, my father did the exact same exercises early in the   
   morning at home before going to his job at the ministry. And in those   
   few years still living in the middle of Tehran, our "pool" was too   
   little to swim in (comfortable for ornamental fish though). So my   
   father, even in coldest early mornings in winter, would break the ice at   
   the top of the water, and fill up bucket after bucket with zero degree   
   water, and emptied them on his head and body after some vigorous   
   exercise inside... I, my two elder brothers, and sometimes even my   
   mother (my sisters weren't born yet), would look at him from behind   
   frozen window glass, wondering and shivering at the same time...   
      
   I still remembered the Armenian's name in 1980s cause I remember writing   
   something about him in a letter to my father. But I have forgotten his   
   name now. He lived in the typical traditional Tehrani style home, in one   
   of the best of them. Large, wide, with all the elements in place. A tiny   
   form of that architecture which was usually for a newly wed couple is   
   like this, I mean the yard part:   
      
   https://i.postimg.cc/htCCGZqg/small-one-family-traditional-home.jpg   
      
   But the large ones instead of that little "pool" in there, have a fully   
   fledged swimming pool in the middle, and the number of rooms on all four   
   sides are so many that often several relatives lived in them with their   
   own families and shared the yard together for various events that always   
   held in the yards, from religious processions to happy ancient holidays'   
   festivities. This is an example of a moderately large traditional   
   Tehrani house: (again just the yard of it)   
      
   https://i.postimg.cc/m2TNHxRM/large-traditional-home.jpg   
      
   Remnants of such houses still in use in Tehran are now museums and fancy   
   restaurants and various culture centers (art exhibitions, cultural   
   clubs, chess houses, bookstores, etc). They don't build those beautiful   
   houses anymore in there because they have features about them that is   
   not available in Tehran of today anymore. For instance, the traditional   
   air-conditioning of the house for hottest days of summer requires access   
   to Ghanat water, which is subterranean and flows through the lowest   
   level of the building half-way below the ground level. Such Ghanat   
   systems don't exist around the houses anymore, as every spot of land in   
   Tehran is now occupied by some structure, making it impossible to direct   
   the Ghanat waters from foot of the mountains to the house. The cold   
   Ghanat water must be flowing through down there so wind-directing   
   features on the roof of the house would send the moving air inside those   
   halls over the moving water to spread the coldness of the water   
   everywhere throughout the air in the hall.   
      
   I have been in such houses in extreme north Tehran (when they still   
   existed) down there at the first level in hottest days of summer,   
   feeling quite chilly with just a pants and shirt on! It was quite cold,   
   and no electricity or energy was used to achieve it.   
      
   So the Tehrani traditional form of house, which heavily depended on a   
   Ghanat system connected to them, aren't built anymore.   
      
      
   Funny a few centuries back, some cro-magnon French Bozo who visited   
   Tehran and it happened to be Summer, wrote in his book about the visit,   
   "Tehrani people live under the ground", without understanding one bit   
   what it was he was looking at :) Typical cro-magnon understanding of   
   Modern Humans.   
      
   So back to our amazing Armenian guy. He must've been making a heck of a   
   lot of money cause he had, all by himself, one of those huge traditional   
   houses in an expensive part of Tehran close to several ministries and in   
   the wealthiest area of Tehran of those days (the "Owdeligan" town). His   
   clients in both classes were well-doing nicely paid government   
   employees. And by all probability, he was also a spy of the Soviets.   
   That's probably why he had not married yet, too dangerous a life to   
   build a family around it while such activities are underway, as time   
   proved it also. But what a man.. :) If my father, a cautious, careful,   
   and skeptic man, fell for his methods and classes, he must've been a   
   jewel indeed.   
      
   By the way, my father's French was still better than his English till   
   the end of his life :) In his late life touring of Europe he said he had   
   to often revert to French, sometimes working and sometimes not working   
   depending on which country he was in.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)