Tag: iran trekking

Sven Hedin in Iran Sven Anders Hedin, the Swedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, and travel writer arrived by paddle steamer in 1886. He journeyed to Persia twice in 1886 and 1890. In 1887, Hedin published a book about these travels entitled Through Persia, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus.Sven Hedin is Sweden’s greatest explorer and adventurer of all time. He was born in Stockholm in 1865 and decided to follow this path in his early teens. The first step in his career was in 1885 when he was just 20 years old. He had the opportunity to travel to Baku, Azerbaijan, to work as a private tutor for the son of a Swedish engineer in the Nobel-owned oil industry. When Hedin had fulfilled his duties as a tutor, he set out on a three-month journey through Persia – today’s Iran. This was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with Iran’s rich nature, history, and culture so much so he returned twice (Wahlquist 2007). Hedin’s second visit to Iran was as a member of the Swedish King Oscar II’s diplomatic mission to the Persian King Naser al-Din Shah in 1890. After the formal assignment was completed, Hedin followed the Shah to the Alborz Mountains and made a successful attempt to ascend Mount Damavand – a snow-capped volcano reaching 5,671 meters above sea level and also the highest mountain in the Middle East. This achievement constituted the basis for Hedin’s doctoral dissertation two years later. Before returning to Sweden, Hedin set off on a reconnaissance trip from Tehran towards Central Asia that took him all the way to Kashgar in westernmost China. Along this route, he got his first glimpse of Iran’s central salt desert, the Dasht-e Kavir. In the following decade, Hedin conducted two extended scientific expeditions focusing on the deserts of