An unusual sight: an elephant had been suspended by a rope for months, swaying from the rafters of a disused factory just outside Iran’s bustling capital. It was waiting for an audience that, like so many other things, was delayed by war.
This elephant, crafted from fiberglass, was part of a surrealist art exhibition meant to debut in June. However, Israeli warplanes launched strikes, triggering a fierce 12-day conflict that quickly drew in the United States. The art show was postponed indefinitely, leaving the artists stranded at the gallery, far from their homes.
Each evening, they would gather chairs in the courtyard, witnessing what the gallery owner, Houman Dayhimi, sardonically called “the fireworks”—missiles tracing arcs across the night sky, punctuated by the dark, terrifying glows of explosions and a symphony of booms and thuds. This grim reality mirrored the surrealism of their artwork.
“It was surreal,” Mr. Dayhimi recounted.
Mr. Dayhimi, like many Iranians, was accustomed to the unpredictable shifts of geopolitics. A decade prior, his gallery, the Dayhim Art Society, was a thriving furniture factory employing 700 people. American sanctions, however, led to its bankruptcy. Undeterred, he repurposed the workshops for art and leased office space to burgeoning tech start-ups.
Even with this history of adaptation, the recent escalation of hostilities with the United States and Israel—occurring as Iran’s regional influence waned—felt like a dangerous new chapter.
“We know that change is coming, but we don’t know what or how,” Mr. Dayhimi mused. “And that’s what makes it worse. It’s so unpredictable.”
Nearly half a century after Iran’s revolution, its people have become adept at navigating the complex space between governmental decrees, the pressures of foreign powers, and their own personal identities and desires.
For instance, signs in upscale restaurants command women to wear the hijab, yet young patrons often disregard them, their hair flowing freely. The internet is heavily censored, but VPNs allow people to browse Instagram and TikTok. American sanctions, while restrictive, fuel a thriving black market.
During an eight-day visit in July, religious observance felt curiously subdued. Clerics were a rare sight on the streets, and the daily call to prayer, despite Iran being a theocratic republic, was seldom heard.
Certainly, many aspects of Tehran aligned with its public image. Numerous women wore head coverings, and black-clad police officers patrolled on dirt bikes. Monumental murals glorified official heroes—stern clerics, fallen generals, and nuclear scientists—while denouncing villains. “DOWN WITH THE USA” was emblazoned across an American flag dropping cartoon bombs.
An anti-American mural in Tehran.
Yet, just a few streets away, vibrant splashes of beauty and history adorned walls with images of flowers or ancient Persian warriors. And while the chant “Death to America!” echoed during Friday Prayers, some Iranians privately admitted their disagreement, even after the once-cartoonish American bombs became a grim reality.
(It should be noted that as part of the restrictions placed on journalists in Iran, a government-assigned translator accompanied us, whose excellent work was later verified.)
During our visit, the city felt wounded, its composure shaken by a war few had anticipated or desired. Residents spoke of feeling rattled and deeply worried about what lay ahead.
The ‘Den of Espionage’
A peculiar relic, a diplomatic ghost ship of sorts, sat on Taleghani Street: a long, two-story building that once served as the epicenter of hostilities between Iran and the United States. Today, it stands as a museum.
The sign above the front door still proudly reads “United States of America Embassy,” adorned with a soaring eagle crest. Yet, the lobby is now dominated by ominous images of skulls, crossbones, and a ghoulish Statue of Liberty. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gazed from a poster in the corner, a faint smile playing on his lips.
The 1979 hostage crisis, during which Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy and held 52 Americans for 444 days, inflicted a foundational trauma on relations between Iran’s rulers and the United States. This event paved the way for decades of simmering hostility, with the Americans severing diplomatic ties and the Iranians crafting their own historical narrative within the deserted embassy, now officially known as the “U.S. Den of Espionage Museum.”
After purchasing my $1.40 ticket (the standard price for foreigners), I entered through what was once known as the Roosevelt Gate. A path wound through an overgrown garden, where street cats dozed under pine trees. Charred helicopter parts were arranged on a plinth, remnants from a botched 1980 rescue mission when American military aircraft collided during a sandstorm, killing eight service members. “The sands in the desert were God’s agents,” read a chilling inscription.
Upstairs, the ambassador’s office remained meticulously preserved—complete with leather chairs, a grand desk, and an immaculate American flag. (It’s worth noting that Iranian factories produce thousands of U.S. flags annually, predominantly for burning at street demonstrations.) A portrait of a smiling President Jimmy Carter hung on the wall.
“Carter paid the price,” remarked our guide, Amir, a 21-year-old military conscript, referring to the crisis’s impact on Mr. Carter’s failed 1980 re-election bid. Like many in a country where self-censorship is prevalent, he requested to be identified by only one name. At the end of the hall, beyond a formidable steel door, lay the museum’s centerpiece: the C.I.A. station. A proud display showcased an array of vintage American spy gear. Compartmented rooms, machines for encoding and decoding messages, satellite transmitters, eavesdropping devices, industrial shredders, and tools for forging passports and license plates (according to the exhibit labels) filled the space.
Wax figures were seated beside a large pile of shredded paper, illustrating the painstaking, years-long effort by Iranian students to reassemble countless American documents found inside the embassy, later compiled and published in several books.
The Iranians often referred to the American hostages as “guests of the ayatollah,” and the museum exhibits emphasized that they were treated fairly. In the embassy hallway, a row of portraits detailed each hostage’s career and life post-crisis, some in an almost affectionate tone. In reality, many hostages later reported experiencing psychological abuse and physical mistreatment during their captivity.
The museum’s message is unequivocal: Americans were solely interested in interfering with Iran, not in assisting it.
However, its audience is limited. The museum attracts approximately 5,000 visitors annually, mostly tourists from Russia and China, Amir noted. Even that modest flow had dwindled since the June war. During our entire tour, there was only one other visitor.
Upon departing, a museum manager offered me some merchandise: a plaque honoring Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian commander killed in an American drone strike in Iraq in 2020. Afterwards, I sought respite at the Boof Cafe, a chic new coffee house on the embassy grounds.
Photos of Charlie Chaplin and Marlon Brando adorned the walls. The owner, a soft-spoken man in his sixties, greeted me with a warm smile but hesitated to discuss politics. “That’s for the politicians, not ordinary people like me,” he said, referring to the tensions between Iran and the United States.
He then slid my order—an iced Americano—across the table. It was perfectly made.
Jammed Signals
Beyond the former embassy, hints of American culture were openly visible. Songs by The Pixies, the Boston rock band, filled a Starbucks-style coffee shop. A vintage Lincoln Continental was proudly displayed in my hotel lobby. Young men huddled in dimly lit gaming cafes, engrossed in Grand Theft Auto.
While the museum focused on the past, most people were absorbed by the present—specifically, the daily struggle for survival, which had worsened significantly since relations with the United States sharply deteriorated.
Siyavash Naeini grumbled as he navigated his modest taxi through the city’s notoriously heavy traffic. Snapp!, Iran’s version of Uber, was barely functioning, he complained.
Authorities were jamming GPS signals across the city, aiming to hinder Israeli or American warplanes from locating potential targets. However, this also made it nearly impossible for customers to hail his taxi. Since June, his business had plummeted by 70 percent.
Mr. Naeini, 59, could not afford to stop. He had been diagnosed with cancer—“terminal,” he stated matter-of-factly—and relied on the income to pay for his life-sustaining medications. “Since I started chemotherapy, I can’t feel the pedals very well,” he confessed, idling at a stoplight.
He acquired his medications at subsidized prices from a government pharmacy, but when supplies ran out, he was forced to the black market, where prices were ten times higher. It was draining his savings. “My wife sold her jewelry,” he revealed. “I sold our rugs.”
As we reached our destination, I offered my sympathies. Mr. Naeini waved them off. He didn’t want pity, he insisted; it was simply the struggle of life.
Then he drove away, vanishing into the traffic, searching for his next fare.
Waiting for Godot
We stood near the British embassy, where a street sign proclaimed “Babbi Sandz Street.”
The street was named after Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican Army member who died in 1981 on hunger strike in a Northern Irish prison, demanding political prisoner status. While reviled in Britain, Mr. Sands became a martyr in Iran’s pantheon of heroes.
Lionizing martyrs is a cornerstone of Iran’s political culture. Beyond identifying enemies like the United States, authorities honor national heroes who embody the values of the Iranian revolution. This practice can also be a subtle jab at rivals. The British embassy, for instance, eventually relocated its entrance to an adjacent street, effectively removing the address named after an Irishman who resisted British rule.
Until recently, Egypt’s embassy in Tehran was situated on a street named after Khalid al-Islambuli, the extremist who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. As a gesture of warming relations between Iran and Egypt, the street name was changed in June.
The fervor for Mr. Sands has manifested in some unexpected ways. Just before midnight, I stopped for dinner at “Bobby Sands Burgers,” a fast-food restaurant on a hilly street in northern Tehran. A queue of hungry diners stretched down the block, awaiting burgers and fries served from a counter adorned with neon images of the deceased Irishman.
“Bobby Sands stood for freedom and liberation,” the manager, Kia Garabandi, informed me. “Iranians can relate to that.”
When asked if it felt peculiar to name a burger joint after someone who had starved to death, Mr. Garabandi was unfazed. “A great man,” he asserted. “And we make great burgers.”
Amidst such turbulence, some preferred to look to the future, hoping for a form of divine deliverance.
At a memorial for the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who had been killed weeks earlier in an Israeli strike, a mourner declared his welcome for the war. He believed it would hasten the return of a religious savior known as the Mahdi, who would convert everyone to Islam.
“Even you,” he said, jabbing a finger towards my chest.
Others, however, weren’t holding their breath for any savior.
In downtown Tehran, students congregated at the artsy Cafe Godot, named after Samuel Beckett’s famous play. “It’s an existential tragicomedy,” remarked the cafe’s owner, Homayoun Ghanizadeh, a well-known movie and theater director. “Iranians can relate to that.”
“Just like in the play,” Mr. Ghanizadeh continued, “every day a messenger arrives saying: Godot won’t come tonight, but he will surely come tomorrow night. And the next day, it all begins anew.”
“In my view, the Islamic Republic is also in a state of waiting,” he concluded. “Although their Godot is quite different from the one ordinary people are waiting for.”
