Culture Café and Cinema Night: Iran

International Students Network HSE is back to you with the events that help Russian and international students learn more about cultures around the world. In November and December 2022, we ran two events where Mohammad Mahdi Mohammadnejad Neshely (or just Misha), our volunteer from Iran, told us about his country and its culture.

On 28 November, we ran the Culture Café: Iran. Misha treated us to some national dishes and told us about the Iranians, famous Perisan carpets, about politics and art.

Here are some interesting facts we found out about Iran:

1) You can find snow in Iran.

2) People from the Iranian mountains are more passionate and emotional than people living in the desert areas.

3) Persian carpets are not just a set of about beautiful patterns. The pattern we all know represents a paradise garden. It is believed that if you buy such a carpet for your home, you also bring in the garden :)

4) It can take up to several years to weave a proper Persian carpet.

5) More than 60 nations and ethnical groups live in Iran. The biggest group is not the Arabs, but tje Persians (67-80% of the population), followed by the Azerbaijani (15-24%), and only 2-3% of the population are the Arabs.

To continue learning about Iran, we watched a movie at the 'Cinema Night', a new series of events where we will screen movie classics from around the world. In December 2022, we watched an Iranian-Japanese film 'The wind carpet' (2003), that touched everyone in the room. Both international and Russian students expressed an interest in watching films created in different countries and we hope to host more of such cosy and educational evenings in future.

We thank HSE International Student Support Centre and Student International Mobility Office for their support in organising these events.