Khakestar

Khakestar (Persian: خاکستر, romanized: Khākestar), also called Rībāt-i-Khākistar, is a historical settlement and caravanserai in Khorasan in the mountains that now separate Iran from Turkmenistan.^[2]

The 11th-century Seljuk emir Savtegin was born at Khakestar, and he later built a ribat (i.e. caravanserai) here.^[6]

In the late 1800s, Mirza Reza Khan Arfa od-Dowleh visited the village of Khakestar after hearing a story about its inhabitants' longevity.^[5] He wrote that it was close enough to Quchan that someone could leave Quchan in the morning, eat lunch in Khakestar, and be back in Quchan by the evening.^[5] Its buildings were made of mud, with roofs variously made from wood or reeds.^[5] There were 80 families and many of the villagers were old; there was basically zero surplus food production so when young people grew up and got married they would emigrate from the village.^[5] In years where the harvest was good, their diet consisted of wheat bread and dairy products - milk, cheese, and yogurt.^[5] When the wheat harvest was poor, they would eat barley bread.^[5] Their main subsistence was from keeping livestock and selling the wool in the markets at Quchan or Shirvan; they had no fruit gardens and bought fruit, clothes, and dishes at the markets.^[5]

In 1918, the British agent Reginald Teague-Jones stopped at Khakestar on his way from Mashhad into Russian territory; at that time, Khakestar was a quarantine post for travellers coming into Iran from Russia, where there was an outbreak of cholera at the time.^[2]

References