Julian Rush
Our Science Correspondent posts from Iran. Part of the News from Iran Blog.

The wonderful Doctor Keesheek

Ever since I’ve been in Iran I’ve had a really nasty cough. It started a week before we came out here and once the worst was over turned into one of those lingering, debilitating, dry hacking coughs that keep you awake at night and leave you constantly tired.

The appalling air pollution in Tehran hasn’t helped.

This morning it got really bad. Waiting in a hot airless room to interview the Iranian MP who chairs the Majlis (Parliament) Energy Committee, I’m faint and sweaty.

My colleagues decide I should see a doctor, so they call the wonderful Borna, our master fixer, the man who knows everyone. “No problem,” he says, “go to so-and-so hospital and ask for Doctor Keesheek.”

Wow! This guy is good! Personal contacts at Tehran hospitals!

At the hospital we ask at the desk for Doctor Keesheek; the receptionist points to a man in a white coat.

“Doctor Keesheek, thank you so much for seeing us, and so quickly.” No waiting here.

We get an odd look, but I get the once over and all is well.

Twenty minutes later we leave. “Thank you, Doctor Keesheek, thank you.” Another odd look.

Back on the minibus, Pejman, our new fixer (Mahmud has jilted us for Jon Snow) is giggling. But eventually he explains those odd looks.

Of course Borna knew Doctor Keesheek... Doctor On Duty.

What's Farsi for 'Everyone back on the bus!'?

The Russian press conference is to be at 4pm. We’ve hours to kill. All the crews are hanging round the hotel. It’s going to be a wasted trip.

Mahmud, our fixer, keeps making phone calls. Around us a football team sits in the hotel lobby too. All dressed in black track suit bottoms and lurid orange tops. They’re here to play against the local team.

A rotund, bearded man in a blue shirt walks in. It turns out he’s one of Iran’s top football coaches. Now this is a football mad country and he’s a star. As he reads his paper, guests come up to snap his picture.

Suddenly Mahmud whispers conspiratorially. “Come now!” he says urgently. If we get the plant for one o’clock we can collect our passes and film the outside.

The authorities have relented, it seems, just for us. And, what’s more, we are now able to film in Bushehr town too. Great!

We pitch up at the plant. Half the crews are here already. The rest turn up soon. No exclusive, then, but at least the gamble seems to have paid off.

But wait. First we have to have lunch.

Suspiciously, the canteen is laid for 50 people. Somehow I don’t think permissions were granted at the last minute.

After lunch, the most demented 45 minutes. A bus arrives. We pile on. Grab a few shots as we drive towards the reactor dome. Get off the bus. Randomly, crews and photographers spill out filming anything that moves. It’s impossible to get a shot without someone getting in the way.

I don’t know what the Farsi is for “Everyone back on the bus!” but I think I’ll know by the end of the day.

On the bus. Off the bus. We stop to do a piece to camera. As I try to muster a few coherent thoughts a photographer squats at my feet, snapping madly up at me. Two Iranian TV crews are filming me. Note to self: ask Mahmud how to say “Get lost!” (politely) in Farsi.

The Russians are helping the Iranians finish Bushehr, and the Iranians are trying to do a deal with the Russians over uranium enrichment to defuse the nuclear crisis. The press conference is even more chaotic. More crews turn up – Russian teams who are traveling with Mr Kirienko. The Farsi-Russian translator has thick, black, orange-tinted glasses. Barrel-chested heavies line the room, arms crossed. We learn a little and retire to Bushehr’s old town to find tea.

On the promenade, in the late afternoon sun, families and couples stroll up and down. It’s miles from the pollution and frenetic traffic of Tehran. Powerful open speedboats occasionally roar along in the sea – the local white-knuckle ride here apparently; they’re for hire.

But we’re able to talk calmly and sensibly to people and get some interesting views on the nuclear issue. This place, after all, may well be a target if America or Israel ever seriously contemplates some sort of pre-emptive military action over all this.

The footballers are at the airport when we arrive. Glum. They lost.

But at least it’s an Airbus again, for the flight back to Tehran. Phew!

No wonder they're smiling. We’re in an Airbus

We’re at Tehran Airport waiting to fly to Bushehr on the Persian Gulf – the site of Iran’s still unfinished nuclear reactor. Sergei Kirienko, the head of RosAtom, the Russian Atomic Energy Agency, is visiting there tomorrow.

After the usual couple of days of asking permissions we’ve been told we can go down and attend his press conference.

“Can you show us round the reactor please?” we ask.

“No.”

“Can we film in Bushehr town?”

“No.”

Not much use for a report to go out in a week’s time, but we decide to take the gamble.

The departure lounge fills up with TV crews from the local media and the international news agencies. This isn’t going to be an exclusive then. Bun-fight, we call it in the trade.

Oddly, every time an ex-pat crew turns up, one of them goes up to the window to look at the plane. Each time they turn back and they’ve a smile on their face.

I turn to Sarah Corp, my wonderful producer. She’s been here before and knows the ropes. Iran Air, it seems, has had more than its fair share of plane crashes. American sanctions mean they have difficulties getting spare parts for their ageing Boeings.

I go to the window.

No wonder they were smiling. We’re in an Airbus.

Like a cardboard mouse from Tom and Jerry

I have been in Iran for seven hours. I'm face down with a mouthful of snow. It's my birthday.

We'd landed just after dawn to an unusually crisp and bright morning in this heavily polluted city. The snow-capped mountains north of Tehran looked stunning.

Six hours later we're at around 3,000 metres at a small ski resort in those mountains. It's Friday afternoon; it’s the weekend here, the equivalent of Sunday afternoon and wealthy Tehranis are at play and we are filming them.

“I think I should go on the one behind you.”, I say to cameraman Graham Heslop.

“But maybe it would be better if we went together, it would balance the weight of the camera.”

“All right, if you think so.”

It’s academic anyway. The ski-lift chair is hurtling towards us. Unsynchronised, we both try to sit in it. We make contact and…

Two bronzed Iranian ski instructors unfold Graham from the slope like a cardboard mouse from Tom and Jerry. He’s winded, but we’re both OK. The camera though, is not. Tape spews from the cassette, the backplate is bent, there’s a loose wheel inside the tape transport.

Now this is really serious. We can’t do Iran Week with just six minutes of film of skiing Iranians. Without a camera we’re stuffed.

And with a broken camera we can’t hide the indignity and embarrassment of our escapade from our colleagues. We know they’ll laugh themselves stupid.

Over barley soup in a small ski café Graham starts tinkering. He rewinds the tape so we haven’t lost the picture. He’s on the phone to London. The camera hit the icy snow very hard he says.

“But you’re in Iran!”

So we have to explain Iran is not just desert. Skiing is a popular sport here. But after a word of advice and another tinker the loose wheel is restored to its rightful spindle.

We’re back in business. It’s going to be an interesting trip.