What kind of country was Iran before? Iran map in Russian

Iran is a Middle Eastern state most recently (before 1935) known as Persia. The oldest cities on Earth are located on the territory of the country.

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Iran is a Middle Eastern state most recently (before 1935) known as Persia. On the territory of the country there are the most ancient cities on Earth, religious shrines of Zoroastrianism and Islam, and numerous natural attractions. The country has gigantic oil reserves and is one of the key players in global commodity markets.

Location, composition and cities

The Islamic Republic of Iran is located in the western part of Asia, washed by the Caspian Sea, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

Administratively, Iran consists of 31 ostans, which in turn are divided into smaller administrative-territorial units - Shahrestans and Bakhshis.

Largest cities: Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj and Tabriz (population more than 1 million people).

The capital of Iran is the city of Tehran.

Borders and area

The country shares land borders with countries such as Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Iran covers an area of ​​1,648,000 square kilometers.

Location on the map

Timezone

Population

75,078,000 people.

Language

The official language is Persian (Farsi).

Finance

The official currency is the rial.

Medical care and insurance

The highest level of medical care is observed in Tehran. Emergency and primary care are free, all further treatment is very expensive. It is recommended to be vaccinated against cholera, polio, yellow fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, hepatitis A and B and tetanus. Before visiting the country, be sure to purchase international health insurance.

Mains voltage

230 Volt. Frequency 50 Hz.

International dialing code

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Why Iran didn't want to be called Persia. More about this in our review.

Iranian stamp from the Pahlavi dynasty period with the laconic name “Iran”.

The stamp was issued on the occasion of the coronation of the third wife of the last Shah of Iran as shahbanu (empress) in 1967.

The stamp depicts the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his wife, Empress Farah.

In 1935, the first Iranian ruler from the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza, sent a letter to the League of Nations with a request to use the word “Iran” (Erān) for the name of his country, instead of the term “Persia”. He justified this by the fact that within his country, the word “Irani” is used to designate what is known in the world as Persia (the term comes from “country of the Aryans,” which goes back to the self-name of the Aryan tribe).

Shah Reza Pahlavi noted that “the Persians are only one of several Indo-Iranian ethnic groups in Iran. Their home region of Pars (Fars) was the center of political power in ancient times - during the Achaemenid Empire, and in the Sassanid Empire. However, during the period of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the name of the region Pars (Fars) was spread by the Greeks to designate the name of the entire country."

The Achaemenid state (existed from 550 BC to 330 BC) was officially called Aryanam Xsaoram (from ancient Persian “Aryan power”; taking into account the modern name of the country, it can also be translated as “Iran power”).

Immediately before the Arab and Islamic conquest of Persia, during the era of the rulers of the Sassanid dynasty (224-652 AD), who were fire-worshipping Zoroastrians, Persia was officially called Eranshahr, i.e. Iranian Empire.

During the period of the Turkic Qajar dynasty, which ruled the country from 1795 to 1925 od and preceded the last monarchical dynasty in Persian history - the Pahlavis, a country known in the world as Persia, however, it was still officially called Iran. Namely, “The Highest State of Iran” (Dowlat-e Eliyye-ye I ran). But in the outside world the name of the country was translated as Persia.

Under the Pahlavi dynasty (ruled from 1925 to 1979), Iran was officially called the Shahanshah State of Iran (Dowlat Shohanshohi-ye Iron (Persian: ŰŻÙˆÙ„ŰȘ ŰŽŰ§Ù‡Ù†ŰŽŰ§Ù‡ÛŒ Ű§ÛŒŰ±Ű§), where the name uses the ancient title of the Persian rulers “shahinshah” (“king of kings”).

Since 1979, after the fall of the monarchy, the country has been officially called the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: Jomhuri-ye Eslomi-ye Iron).

In conclusion, it is worth noting that the Persians themselves began to use the term “Persia” to name their country in a number of publications and books in the new and recent historical period, under the influence of the West, as if borrowing this term back from the ancient Greeks.

Additionally:

Around the name of Iran

“When compiling a historical overview of Iran, it is necessary to take into account the fact that Iran, as a geographical concept, does not coincide with the area of ​​settlement of Iranians as an ethnographic unit, nor with the area of ​​influence of Iranian culture, nor with the area of ​​distribution of Persian, i.e. Iranian literary language . In ancient times, India and Iran were equally occupied by a people who called themselves Arians (Aryans) - arua in India, ariya or airya in ancient Iranian dialects.

In the inscriptions of King Darius, the word “Aryans” apparently refers exclusively to the population of Iran;

India and the Indians were named after the border river Sindhu, in Iranian pronunciation Hindu(Indian c generally corresponds to Iranian h), on modern maps Indus; from the Persians this name passed to the Greeks and, like most Greek names, came into use in modern geographical science.

In the Iranian scripture (Avesta), the term Hindu is used as the name of a river and speaks of the “seven Indus” (harta hindu), which fully corresponds to the Indian term sapta sindhavah. The Indian “Seven Rivers” received its name from the Indus, Kabul and the five rivers of the “Punjab” (i.e., “Five Rivers”), the Chinab with its tributaries Jhelum and Ravi, and the Setlej with its tributary the Bias.

Arias are opposed to tours(tura, adjective tuirya) and sarima (sairima); if by the latter, as is believed, we must understand the Sarmatians or Sauromatians of Greek writers, then we mean the Central Asian people, according to most scientists, related to the Iranians; it is very likely that the Turs were of the same origin and also lived in Central Asia.

In other words, the population of Iran isolated itself equally from the Indian, “Aryan” and related Central Asian peoples. The word "Iran", originally Eran, appears later and is the genitive plural of the word airya (airyanara), in the sense: (country of) the Aryans. We first meet it in the Greek form Ariane from Eratosthenes (III century BC), from whom Strabo borrowed this information.

The border of this “Ariana” or Iran was considered to be: the Indus in the east, the Hindu Kush and the mountain ranges to the west of it in the north, the Indian Ocean in the south; the western border ran from the Caspian Gate, i.e., the mountain pass east of Tehran, along the line separating Parthia from Media and Karamania (Kerman) from Persis (Fars). Obviously, the term “country of the Aryans” was understood not in an ethnographic, but exclusively in a political sense; this was the name of the country united under the rule of the Arsacid dynasty, which rebelled against the Greek conquerors; the areas that remained under Greek rule, both in the west (the Seleucid state) and in the northeast (the Greco-Bactrian kingdom) were not considered Iran.

Subsequently, under the Sassanids, a region with a Semitic population, Babylonia, where the capital of the “king of kings” was located, was not only classified as Iran, but was even considered “the heart of the Iranian region.” And now in Persia itself, Iran is understood as the state of the Shahin Shah.

The origin of the word Iran and the ethnographic term "Aryans" from which it comes were forgotten already in the Middle Ages; from the word “Iran” to designate the population of this country the term “Iranians” (Persian, Irani) was formed. Iran was most often contrasted with "Turan", a word derived from "tura" in the same way as Iran from "aria"; only later was “Turan” identified with “Turkestan,” the country of the Turks.

The words “Iran” and “Turan” received a completely different meaning in geographical science; Iran was understood as a plateau representing an internal basin and bordering in the north with the basin of the Caspian and Aral seas, in the south, west and east - with the basin of the Indian Ocean, between the Tigris and Indus; near Turan is the Aral Sea basin. The words “Turan” and “Turanians” were sometimes used in a broader sense, uniting under these terms the entire Central Asian world from the southern Russian steppes to China, and contrasting the “Turanians” not only with the “Iranians”, but with the “Aryans” in general.

The name “Aryans” again became known to Europeans in the 18th century. (not from living speech, but from the most ancient written monuments of India and Iran). After the closeness of the languages ​​of India and Iran with European languages ​​was established, Aryans (Arier, Ariens, Aryans) began to call all representatives of the linguistic group embracing the peoples “from India to Iceland.”

Subsequently, instead of this term, others were proposed: Indo-Europeans, Indo-Germans (especially in German science), Ario-Europeans, retaining the name “Aryans” only for Asian Indo-Europeans, whose ancestors actually called themselves by this name; nevertheless, the word “Aryans” is still sometimes used in science in the same sense, even in Germany.

Aryans, in the sense of "Asiatic Indo-Europeans", were divided into two branches, Indians and Iranians. Iranians in the linguistic sense began to be called, regardless of political borders, peoples united into one whole according to linguistic characteristics. When at the end of the 19th century the idea arose to compile a set of scientific material related to the field of “Iranian philology” (languages, literature and history of the Iranians), the linguistic department of this set included dialects from the easternmost of the Pamirs, Sarykol, to western Kurdish, in the eastern parts of the Asia Minor peninsula, i.e., approximately from 75 to 38 degrees east. debt, from Greenwich. In addition, the dialect of the so-called Ossetians (who call themselves Iron), living separately from others, “Iranians” in the Caucasus, west of the former Georgian military road, is considered.

The area of ​​distribution of Iranian dialects in ancient times was even more extensive, although in many cases the question of which particular peoples spoke Iranian remains controversial.

An even larger area embraced the area of ​​distribution of the main literary language of Iran, the so-called “New Persian”, formed already under Islam; it was written far beyond the borders of linguistic Iran, from Constantinople (Turkish Sultan Selim II, 1566-1574 was one of the Persian poets) to Calcutta and the cities of Chinese Turkestan. The historian of Iranian culture must take into account both this fact and the even more numerous translations from Persian and imitations of Persian models.” (From the collection “History of the Middle East”, published in Russia in 2002).

(Islamic Republic of Iran)

General information

Geographical position. Iran is a country in southwest Asia. In the north it borders with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, in the east with Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the west with Iraq and Turkey. In the north it is washed by the Caspian Sea, in the south by the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.

Square. The territory of Iran occupies 1,648,000 square meters. km.

Main cities, administrative divisions. The capital is Tehran. The largest cities: Tehran (6,830 thousand people), Mashhad (2,011 thousand people), Isfahan (1,915 thousand people), Tabriz (994 thousand people), Shiraz (848 thousand people). Administrative-territorial division of the country: 24 ostans (provinces).

Political system

Iran is an Islamic republic. The spiritual head of state is the Ayatollah. The secular head of state is the president. Legislative power lies with the unicameral Assembly of the Islamic Council (Majlis).

Relief. Most of Iran is occupied by a central plateau, approximately 1,200 m above sea level and almost entirely surrounded by mountain ranges.

In the north, parallel to the shore of the Caspian Sea, are the Elburz Mountains, where the highest point of the country is located - Mount Damavand (5,604 m). The Zagros Mountains stretch along the western border to the southeast towards the Persian Gulf. To the east of the plateau lie lower mountains. The flat areas lie along the coastal strip near the Caspian Sea. In the center of the state there are two vast deserts: the sandy-rocky Dasht-i-Lut and the salty Dasht-i-Kavir.

Geological structure and minerals. The country's subsoil contains rich reserves of oil and natural gas, and less significant reserves of coal, iron ore, chromium, copper, zinc, lead, manganese, and sulfur.

Climate. Based on climatic characteristics, Iran can be divided into three regions: the very hot coast of the Persian and Oman Gulfs; temperate but arid climate of the central highlands; cold climate in the Elborz mountains region. The average January temperature in Tehran is from -3°C to +7°C, in July - from +22°C to +37°C. In Abadan (on the coast of the Persian Gulf) - from +7°C to +17°C in January and from +28°C to +44°C in July. The average annual precipitation in Tehran is about 250 mm, in Abadan - less than 200 mm.

Inland waters. In winter and spring, small rivers flow into the Dasht-i-Kavir desert. Most Iranian rivers dry up during the dry season. The main, non-drying rivers, mostly short, originate in the foothills in the north or south of the country and flow into the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman. The Karun River is the country's main navigable river. There are few large lakes in Iran; they mostly dry up during the dry season. The largest lake that lies entirely within Iran is Lake Urmia (Rezaie) in the north of the country.

Soils and vegetation. In the Zagros Mountains there are forest areas where oak, walnut, elm, and pistachio trees grow. On the seaward slopes of the Elborz Mountains and in the Caspian Valley, the vegetation is very rich: a large number of ash, elm, elm, oak, birch, and some evergreens. Cacti and thorns grow in desert areas.

Animal world. The fauna is represented quite widely: rabbit, fox, wolf, hyena, jackal, leopard, deer, porcupine, ibex (mountain goat), bear, tiger, badger. Among the birds in the center of the country there are a large number of pheasants and partridges, on the coast of the Persian Gulf - flamingos and pelicans. The Caspian Sea is home to beluga, herring, and sturgeon.

Population and language

Iran's population is about 68.96 million people, with an average population density of about 49 people per square kilometer. km. Ethnic groups: Persians - 51%, Azerbaijanis - 24%, Gilaks and Mazandarans - 8%, Kurds - 7%, Arabs - 3%, Lurs - 2%, Balokhi - 2%), Turkmens - 2%. Languages: Farsi (New Persian) (state), Turkic, Kurdish.

Religion

Shiites - 95% (state religion), Sunnis - 4%, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Baha'is.

Brief historical sketch

In the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. Cyrus the Great created the Persian Empire, which lasted until 333 BC. e., when it was conquered by Alexander the Great. In the next century, Persia regained its independence, and the Persian kingdom lasted until the 7th century. n. e. With the advent of Islam on the territory of Persia, the country was included in the Medina, and later in the Damascus caliphate. The old Zoroastrian religion of Persia practically disappeared, completely suppressed by Islam. In the 11th century Iran was captured by the Turks, and later by the Seljuks, the Mongols of Genghis Khan, the army of Tamerlane and the Turkmens, who stayed in Iran the longest - until 1502. In 1502, Iran regained its independence with the coming to power of the Persian Safavid dynasty, which ruled the country until 1722. Shah Abbas I, who ruled in the second quarter of the 17th century, is considered the most powerful ruler of this dynasty. After his death, the gradual decline of the country began, leading to the conquest of Iran by the Afghan army in 1722. However, within a few years a new dynasty was founded, leading Iran to relative prosperity.

In 1906, a constitutional monarchy was proclaimed in Iran, which lasted until 1979, when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was dethroned. In January of the same year, Ayatollah Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic republic. Khomeini's rule was marked by brutality and was marked by an international scandal when American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran in November 1979, as well as the death sentence of the British writer of Indian origin Salman Rushdie, who wrote the book The Satanic Verses, which was offensive to Islam. In 1993, Rafsanjani confirmed the verdict.

Brief Economic Sketch

Iran is an agrarian-industrial country with a developed oil industry. Extraction of oil, gas, coal, chromite, lead-zinc, copper, manganese and iron ores. Oil refining and petrochemical enterprises. Ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy. Mechanical engineering and metalworking. Food-flavoring and textile industries. Handicraft production (carpets, hardware). The main food crops are grains (wheat, barley), rice, legumes; technical cotton, sugar beets, sugar cane, tobacco, tea. Fruit growing, melon growing, viticulture, planting nut and pistachio trees. Extensive livestock farming (sheep, goats, cattle, camels). Sericulture. Marine fishing. Export: oil and oil products (95-99% of cost), carpets, caviar. (

The currency is the Iranian rial.

Brief sketch of culture

Art and architecture. Tehran. Bastan Museum with archeological exhibits from ancient Persian cities; imam mosque; Aka Shrine; Apiyabad is the burial place of Ayatollah Khomeini; the 45 m high Shahiyad Tower, built in 1971; Negarestan Museum with a collection of Iranian art from the period of the Persian Empire; Ethnographical museum; Carpet Museum; National Art Museum. Shiraz. Masjid-i-Jama Mosque (IX century); tombs of the Persian poets Hafez and Saadi; Kom Museum and Pars Museum. Urmia (homeland of the prophet Zoroaster). Jama Mosque; Mosque of the Three Domes. Tabriz. Blue Mosque (XIII century); Citadel (XIV century). Hamadan. Tomb of Esther and Tomb of Avicenna. Esfahan. Royal Masjid-i-Shah Mosque (XVII century); Masjid-i-Sheikh-Lutfullah Mosque; royal garden with a throne room on 40 columns; Shah Hussain school of dervishes, founded in 1710 Nishair. Tomb of Omar Khayyam. Mashhad (holy city of Shia Muslims). Tomb of Ali ar-Rida and tomb of Caliph Harun al-Rashid.

Literature. Omar Khayyam (c. 1048-after 1122) - poet, author of world-famous philosophical quatrains - rubai; Saadi (between 1203 and 1210-1292) - writer and thinker (poem “Bustan”, collection of parables “Gulistan”).

Subtropical in the north and tropical in the south, mostly continental and continental mountainous. The coast of the Persian and Oman Gulfs is located in a zone of hot and humid tropical climate, the temperature ranges from +16-18°C in winter to +24-30°C in summer, with relatively large amounts of precipitation (up to 1000 mm on the mountain slopes, up to 600 mm in flat areas). The central regions of the country are dominated by an arid subtropical climate, while the uniformity of weather conditions is greatly distorted by the mountainous terrain. The temperature here ranges from +3-8°C in winter to +30-32°C with regular temperature increases up to +40°C and precipitation of no more than 250 mm per year. In the mountainous regions of Elborz and Zagros it is much cooler (in summer +16-26°C, in winter from -4°C to +12°C), and wetter (precipitation falls up to 2000 mm per year). The best period to visit Iran is from mid-April to early June, and from late September to early November.

Population

About 69 million people. More than 60 nationalities, ethnic groups and tribes live in Iran, of which the most numerous are Persians (51%), Azerbaijanis (24%), Gilaks and other representatives of Turkic tribes (8%), Kurds (7%), Arabs (3%) , Lurs (2%), Turkmens (2%), Balochis, Armenians, etc. In addition, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq permanently reside in the country.

Geography

Iran is one of the largest states in South-West Asia (area 1.648 million sq. km). It borders with Turkey (in the northwest), Afghanistan and Pakistan (in the east), Iraq (in the west), as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (in the north). In the north, Iran is washed by the waters of the Caspian Sea, in the south by the Persian and Oman Gulfs.

Shiite Islam is professed by 89% of the population (Shiism is the state religion of the country), Sunni Muslims make up 10% of the total number of believers (there are also adherents of other Islamic sects), some of the population professes Zoroastrianism (0.1%), Judaism (0.3 %) and Christianity (0.7%). All religious communities enjoy complete freedom of worship, and the protection of cultural, social and political rights of all religious minorities is recognized in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Representatives of all faiths are represented in the Mejlis.

Official - Farsi (Persian). Turkic dialects, Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, etc. are also used. English and French are used in business circles.

Holidays

December-February - Eid al-Adha (Eid al-Adha, holiday of sacrifice). January-February - Islamic New Year. early February - The suffering of Imam Jafar Sadeq. February-April - Ashura. February 11 - Victory Day of the Islamic Revolution 1979. February 18 - Imam Reza's birthday. March 19 is the Day of Nationalization of Oil Fields. March 27 - Eid Ghadir Khom (the day Muhammad named his successor Imam Ali). end of March - beginning of April - Nowruz (Navruz, Iranian New Year) and Sizda be-Bedar. April 1 is Islamic Republic Day. April 17 - Tashua. April-May - Arbain (The Sorrows of Imam Hussein). June 4 is the anniversary of the death of Imam Khomeni. June 5 is the Day of the Uprising against the Shah. June 16 - Maulid (Birthday of the Prophet). July 4th is the Day of the Death of the Prophet. August-October - Imam Ali's birthday. September-November - Imam Mahdi's birthday. September-December - The suffering of Imam Ali. October - Laylat al-Meiraj (Rise of the Prophet). October-November - Eid al-Fitr (Eid al-Fitr, end of Ramadan). November - The suffering of Imam Jafar Sadeq. December-February - Imam Reza's birthday. The Iranian calendar is based on zodiac events and the traditional Islamic lunar calendar, so the dates of many events are approximate. Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha can last from 2 to 10 days depending on the region of the country. The official day off in the country is Friday; most institutions and shops are closed on this day (also closed on national and religious holidays).

National characteristics

When visiting a country, you should exercise some caution in your behavior and statements so as not to offend the religious feelings of local residents. This especially applies to clothing and relations between the sexes. The country has adopted separate travel for men and women on public transport (even at the funicular or at the ticket office, there are often two queues - one for men and one for women). Wearing the hijab (“dress of modesty”) is mandatory for women. For a tourist, long trousers (in no case tight) or a long skirt, a dress with long sleeves or a cape, and a headscarf will be enough. Be sure to dress this way when traveling around cities, in hotel lobbies, or when shopping in bazaars. Wearing a veil and clothing that covers the hands and ankles of the feet is mandatory for women when visiting a mosque or holy places. Shorts and sleeveless T-shirts for men are also unacceptable in such cases. During the lunar month of Ramadan, devout Muslims fast during the daytime and eat only after dark, so the normal course of events or business relations during this period is often disrupted. Many shops and restaurants are closed during the day, and smoking and drinking are strictly limited. The official day off in the country is Friday, when institutions and most shops are closed. They are also closed on national and religious holidays.

National cuisine

Iranian cuisine is one of the oldest in the world. Therefore, its recipes can be considered one of the most unusual in the world, although not in appearance it is very simple and satisfying. The basis of many dishes is rice, bread, meat, fresh vegetables, herbs and fruits in all sorts of combinations. A characteristic feature is the very fine cutting of meat and its rare participation in the meal as the main product - most often the meat is used as an ingredient in complex dishes.

To travel to Iran, Russian citizens need a visa. A visa is not required only for a trip to Kish Island (without visiting other parts of the country). Applying for a visa To obtain a visa, you must provide the Iranian consulate with an application form, one photograph in visa format (for women under 30 years old - preferably wearing a headscarf), a valid passport (the passport must be valid for at least 6 months) and an invitation from the host party or tourist organization (voucher ). Consular fee for a tourist visa is 2170 rubles. Payment is made at Bank Melli Iran (Moscow, Mashkova St., 9). The processing time is from 10 to 20 days (sometimes up to a month), since permission from the Iranian Ministry of Internal Affairs is requested for each entry. If the invitation was officially issued through the Iranian side, then the visa is issued at the consulate in your presence in 20 minutes. Visa at the border It is possible to obtain a temporary tourist visa for 7 days immediately upon arrival at the airports of Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz, Tabriz and Tehran. The visa fee in this case is $50. You must have round-trip tickets and proof of sufficient financial resources for the entire period of your stay in the country. Visas will be denied to women who do not wear headscarves, as well as to persons who have a valid or expired visa to Israel.

Iranian rial (international designation - IRR, domestically - IR)

Currency exchange

Banks are open from 08.00 to 15.00-16.00 from Saturday to Wednesday, some branches are open from 08.00 to 20.00. Closed days are Thursday and Friday, although large banks are open on Thursday from 8.00 to 13.00. In tourist areas, US dollars, pounds sterling and euros are accepted for payment; in the rest of the country, their use is illegal, although this rule is widely ignored. Currency can be changed at Tehran airport, in some hotels or banks, in exchange offices (very few) on the streets and markets, and only at the official rate. You can also make an exchange with numerous private money changers on the market, who usually offer the most favorable rate, but officially this is considered illegal, although in practice it is not prosecuted. Credit cards and traveler's checks are accepted for payment only in major banks and hotels in the capital and on the island of Kysh. It is almost impossible to use them in other areas. Also, owners of non-cash means of payment issued by US banks often face great difficulties. Due to the trade boycott of Iran and the inability to use plastic cards from the world's leading systems, you can use a special “tourist card” from Parsian Bank, which can be used to pay in several tens of thousands of shops, shopping and tourist centers, and when leaving the country, convert the balance into any currency .

Transport

Transport in Iran fully meets the modern requirements of the European traveler. The best way to travel between cities is by plane - quickly, conveniently and very cheaply. The railway network is not very dense, but for some destinations it may be convenient to choose an overnight train journey. Finally, the most budget-friendly transport for traveling is intercity buses. At train stations you can find timetables in English. The cashiers also speak English or will certainly call someone who can establish communication. Prices for any type of transport are more than affordable. We recommend taking a taxi inside the city and to the nearest suburbs. It's also inexpensive, especially if you're traveling with a group.