Today is the blessed day of Aban Izad, the month of Dey in year 3759 of Zoroastrian calendar, Saturday, 4th Dey, 1400, December 25, 2021 AD.
On December 25, 69 years ago, Karim Saei, the builder of Saei Park and the founder of Valiasr Street, joined the immortal souls, after a car crash. He was the first to initiate forestation and had an important role in the expansion of green areas in Tehran.
Saiee was the founder of the science of natural resources in Iran, founder of a field of study in forestry, and founder of the organization for forests, rangelands, and watershed management, in Iran. He is the first person who played an essential role in the afforestation and development of green areas in Tehran.
Saei Park dates back to 5 decades ago. Construction of Saei Park began in 1945 AH. Karim Saiee planted sycamore trees in the park and then donated it to the Ministry of Agriculture. Professor Hassan Mahboubi took on the task of designing the park in the 1960s. In addition to designing Saiee Park, Prof Mahboudi was also in charge of supervising the construction of Mellat and Niavaran parks. Construction of Saei Park began in 1963 and continued until 1973 solar. This park, located along Valiasr Ave., the longest avenue in the Middle East, with its intertwined and beautiful plane trees, is a part of Tehran’s history. These sycamore trees have given a distinctive identity to the street and have made it one of the most beautiful streets in the world. All these trees were planted under the design and supervision of Karim Saei, the father of Iranian forestry.
Karim Saei was born in 1910 in Mashhad. He had his high school education in his hometown, university education in the Faculty of Agriculture, in Tehran University, and graduated with a degree in engineering in 1931. He was accepted as a student abroad and went to Montpellier for two years at the French Institute of Agronomy, where he graduated with honors. His academic achievements led the French scientific journal to introduce him as one of the leading figures of forest science in those years. He returned to the country in 1937 after earning a master’s degree in forest statistics from the University of California, Berkeley. With the establishment of the Forest Circle in 1938 as the first forest management institution in the country, he took over the presidency, and due to his activities and hard work, a year later, this small institution was promoted to the Forestry Department and later to the General Directorate of Forests.
He and his colleagues drafted forest laws and regulations and passed them in parliament in the same years. Karim Saiee succeeded in giving an estimate of the forest areas in Iran, for the first time, in 1946. In 1948, he published the first volume and, in 1950, the second volume of the book on forestry, which laid the foundation for the scientific information for the foresters of the country. After his tenure as director general of forests, he did not retire himself. Instead, he proposed that a forestry course be established at the Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, where he also worked as a professor.
By founding the Forests Agency in 1949, he became the chairman of the board of directors and the managing director of this company. In December 1949 he published a special magazine for the employees by the name of Forests Agency Newsletter.
Engineer Karim Saei was killed in a plane crash on December 25, 1952, while returning from a research mission from Shiraz to Tehran. According to his will he was buried in the faculty of natural resources space, in Tehran University. The statue of this great man is sitting on a bench in Saei Park, which is named after him), as though he is guarding the country’s parks and forests. Engineer Karim Saei passed away at the age of 42.
Water is the source of life; mankind established the first urban dwelling next to springs and rivers; and thus development began, and he then started praising God. Aban, another name for the Aredvi Sura Anahita (Anahita), symbolizes the pure and running waters on earth and the guardian of purity and clearness in the universe. Anahita has a valuable place in Persian mythology, so our ancestors built shrines along rivers and running water to celebrate water, an example of which still stands in Kangavar, Kermanshah, and Bishapour.
The tenth day of the month is called Aban Izad in the Mazdyasni calendar. The name of the eighth month of the solar year and the name of the tenth day of each Zoroastrian month is called Aban. In Avestan language it is called “ap”, in the ancient Persian language “api” and in the contemporary Persian “ab”. In Avesta ap is often referred to as the guardian angel of water (ab) and is usually written in the plural form.
Aban is the Persian name of the Izad of waters or Anahita. In Avesta (Aredvi Sura Anahita) means powerful and pure (pollutant free) river. Anahita is the abbreviation of the Avestan word, is the name of the goddess representing these flowing waters, and the Yasht in Avesta in praise of this deity is called Aban Yasht.
Water is one of the four elements and is highly regarded by Iranians, and our ancestors had special praise for water, so that they built fire temples near springs and streams to give praise to both the Izad of fire (ador) and the Izad of water (Aban), these two useful creations of Ahura.
In ancient Iran, polluting the water was considered a great sin, so bridges were built on rivers in order not to make the water muddy when passing from it. Iranians also poured water and washed themselves to wash their bodies in a container called an “abzan” that was the size of a human body. The Abzan is something like a bathtub that we use these days.
