TEHRAN – The Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Department of Robat Karim in Tehran province plans to organize a webinar on Thursday to discuss the historical Yakhchals (ice storages) and their usages in the past. 

Throughout the webinar, participants will learn about the main characteristics of desert cities, including features of the traditional Yakhchals, Robat Karim’s tourism chief has announced. 

Because of its location on the southern outskirts of Tehran and its proximity to the desert, Robat Karim has a different architecture compared to the northern cities and villages of Tehran province, CHTN quoted Hamid Karimi as saying on Sunday. 

Architects and cultural heritage experts are scheduled to participate in the webinar, the official added. 

When there was no electricity, no refrigerators, and no appliances, people kept a huge amount of water next to the high walls of Yakhchals, which cast a shadow that kept the water cool.

The water turned into ice during the wintertime. Then people cut the ice into many portable parts and put them in the ice house and covered the surface of the ice with special local grass.

The structure is built high to minimize the contact of warm air with the ice surface as the warm air floats upwards. The feature of the ice storage was essential to its functioning. 

There were also wells behind the ice storage with a connective canal at the bottom of the ice storage to the wells with a slight slope.

When people piled up the ice, a little amount of water remained under the heap of ice. If the water was not removed it would make the rest of the ice melt. By channeling the water into the well, not only did they prevent the ice stored in the ice house from melting, but also they had cold and tasty water during summer months when the weather went up to 40 degrees Celsius.

ABU/AFM