Kharānaq

We stopped at this deserted village for a leg stretch and also to have a quick look. As luck would have it, we were soon spotted by the few locals who were around and in a few minutes a guy drove up on a scooter and spoke with our Iranian tour guide. it turned out that the whole village was a conversation and restoration site and that he was the curator and main source behind things here. He offered to open the place up and show us around. this he did with typical Iranian friendlines and passion. He certainly knew his stuff. Afterwards, he brought us to a little family run cafe where we had some tea.

Sitting in a remote valley about 70km (43 miles) north of Yazd in Central Iran, is the deserted and crumbling mud-brick village of Kharanaq. The site has been occupied for approximately 4,000 years, while the dilapidated adobe buildings that draw foreigners from around the world date back around 1,000 years. The abandoned town is a photographer’s dream with a labyrinth of streets, tunnels, passageways, and rooms, as well as more impressive buildings such as a tiny mosque, a shaking minaret, and an old caravanserai that welcomed merchants and pilgrims centuries ago.

Kharanaq, which means ‘place of birth of the sun’, is divided into two parts – the Old Town, which is almost completely deserted, and the New Town, where some 130 families continue to live.

The Old Town was constructed with sun-baked mud bricks, forming one of the largest collections of adobe buildings in Iran. It was once a prosperous farming village, but when water supplies dried up the inhabitants left, leaving the town to turn to ruins.

In recent years, a New Town was constructed within 2km (1.4 miles) of the ancient town with government-supplied water and electricity. Apart from a few elderly people who refused to leave their old houses and continue to live among the ruins, the rest of the Old Town’s inhabitants moved to the New Town.Read more