Water in the desert
Kashan sits at the edge of the central desert, and Fin Garden is a lesson in what water means there. A spring and qanat at the foot of the mountains send water through the garden in stone channels and pools lined with turquoise tile, so fast and cold it bubbles up through small fountains without any pump. Laid out in its present form in 1590 under Shah Abbas, it is the oldest garden in Iran that survives intact.
Amir Kabir
The garden also holds one of the saddest stories in Iranian history. Amir Kabir, the reforming chancellor who founded Iran’s first modern college, the Dar ul-Funun, fell from favour and was exiled to Kashan. In 1852, on the order of Naser al-Din Shah, he was killed in the garden’s bathhouse. Visitors still walk through the bathhouse in his memory.
