If one has a bottle of vodka he never gets old. That is, according to Armenian graffiti at Siahkuh caravanserai (also called Abbasabad and Qasr-i Bahram) in the kavir between the fearsome salt plains of the Darya Namak and the neighbouring 30km expanse of salty mud. Siahkuh is now in a restricted-entry area; but it is said to have been built as a hunting lodge for Shah Abbas the First.
The Armenian graffiti is presumably(?) later than the Persian graffiti from the same building (dating back to 1592); but when Armineh Marghussian did the vodka translation for me (thank you, thank you!) – I couldn’t help but think of Russians . . and the outrageous story Muratowicz, an Armenian carpet trader, tells of some Russian ambassadors arriving to see Shah Abbas in 1601.
The ambassador was apparently not prepared to pay appropriate homage to the Shah; so Abbas first used various pretexts to delay the meeting (he was too hot; he needed to take his medicine; he had already waited too long; and so on).
Eventually he invited the ambassador’s party to “eat Shah Abbas’ bread” with the first vizir. The first course was served on brass plates, the second on pewter. The third course was on silver plates, and the fourth on porcelain. The final (dessert) course was on gold plates. All the time, Abbas was observing the visitors through a fine grille.
When the guests were drunk, they apparently asked permission to leave. At that moment, the second vizir arrived – saying that the Shah was so happy about the arrival of the ambassador that he had requested they might permit him to gift them everything to be found in the dining-room.
Straight away, “without hesitating, [the Russians] threw themselves on the gold plates, grabbing and snatching with great shouts and noise. After that, they threw themselves on the tapestries, ripping them, and sharing everything amongst themselves”. All the while, Abbas was watching and when the Russians left, he spoke to his vizirs of how, on his arrival, the ambassador had acted very seriously, “taking every care to honour his Lord and promote his own importance as an envoy; but when he is drunk, he is revealed for the lightweight he is”.
A lesson to all of us .. eh?