Mohammadian fled the Iranian Revolution for Canada, but set up a bit of Iran in his tiny space where you could smoke hookah pipes on Davie Street
Abdolhamid Mohammadian fled his native Iran during the bloody Iran-Iraq war in the late-1980s. But he pined for his homeland, and set up a bit of Iran in his downtown Vancouver shop, the Persian Tea House.
In his tiny space at 668 Davie St., visitors could smoke hookah pipes, drink tea, and enjoy a home-away-from-home atmosphere that attracted both the Persian diaspora and non-Iranians.
“It had art from Iran, there were traditional carpets from Iran, and there was even a little bit of the soil from Iran in his shop,” said his daughter Azi Mohammadian.
“He grieved. He loved Iran, and was so sad not to be able to go back. His dying wish was to be cremated, and to take his ashes back to Iran and put it in the river near where he grew up.”
Abdolhamid Mohammadian passed away from pancreatic cancer Sept. 20 at St. Paul’s Hospital. He was 78.
He moved to Vancouver in the early-1990s after a few years in Guelph, Ont., which he found too cold. For about three decades, he ran the Persian Tea House, where people would gather nightly to smoke from an assortment of hookah pipes, dance to Persian music and talk.
Some of his younger customers gave him the nickname Baba Hamid.
“Baba in Farsi means dad,” explains his daughter. “So many people don’t have a family here, they don’t have a father around. So they would go to the shop and sit. Not all of them would smoke, they’d drink tea, talk, bring food and eat.”
Smoking a hookah pipe is a Middle Eastern cultural tradition. But it doesn’t get you high.
“It just makes you calm,” said Azi Mohammadian. “It’s a fruit-flavoured tobacco. It’s a social thing, very popular in the Middle East.”
Smoking indoors became illegal in Vancouver in 2008, and Mohammadian fought the bylaw ban. In 2015, he even went on a hunger strike in protest when the city tried to close his shop.
The authorities backed down, allowing the Persian Tea House to operate under a grandfather clause. But with his death, it will close.
Mohammadian was born on Aug. 16, 1946 in Ahvaz, a city in southern Iran. He was in the Iranian navy during the Shah’s reign.
“There was a celebration in Iran for 2,500 years of (the Persian empire in 1971), which was for the Shah,” said Azi Mohammadian. “My father attended that ceremony. He was the bodyguard of the King of Ethiopia (Haile Selassie).”
Mohammadian was posted to the Iranian embassy in Italy in the 1970s, but was brought back to Iran amidst the political turmoil that resulted in the Iranian revolution in 1978-79.
The Shah was deposed in favour of a strict religious government run by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Iraq launched a war against Iran and Mohammadian fought for Iran for several years before deciding to leave for the West in 1989-90.
“I think he was unhappy in the army, or they were after him (because he had been in the Shah’s navy),” said another daughter, Elaheh Bakopoulos.
“He wasn’t religious. I’m sure he was against the regime in Iran.”
His daughters don’t know how he got out of Iran, but it wasn’t legal — he was still in the navy. The Iranian military and national police came looking for him after he disappeared.
He initially went to Italy, then moved to Guelph, and finally Burnaby. His eldest daughter Elaheh joined him in Guelph, where she still lives, and his youngest daughter Azi joined him in B.C. when she was 21.
He was married three times. He had four children with his first wife, Narges, including three daughters (Elaheh, Azi and Afsaneh, who lives in Iran) and a son, Amin, who lives in Germany.
He had one son, Nader, with his second wife Soheila. He was married to his third wife, Ezat, when he died.