A farmer harvests red cherries in a garden on the outskirts of Alamut in Qazvin province, north-central Iran, June 29, 2020. The harvest season commenced couple of days ago in numerous lush gardens that are dotted in the mountainous region.

Alamout is also famed for being home to a well-fortified ruined castle once sheltering the followers of Hasan-e Sabbah (1070–1124), a leader of Ismaili sect, known as ‘Assassins’. In early 1930s, British-Italian explorer and travel writer Freya Stark described her exploration of the place in her book “The Valleys of the Assassins”.