Simple and easygoing.
I am in love with nature and culture (not much interested in places and historical sites). I am an environmental activist, after being a vegan for 5 years, now I am a part-time vegetarian. I established 2 vegan restaurants in my hometown, Mashhad, Iran. They were the first vegan restaurants in the city. I really wanted to introduce this diet to the city.
Le Monde wrote an article about our restaurant:
http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2013/06/14/iran-un-restaurateur-vegan-dans-la-sainte-capitale-de-la-viande_3429862_3218.html

Up to late 2015, I was running the first nature school in the country; a city farm where children of big cities can touch, feel and experience nature on a daily basis. Later on, it becomes a national movement and a few tens of nature schools started in Iran.

Then I got back to agriculture as my family heritage but not in the field to grow something but to use the digital world to innovate farming practices toward sustainable agriculture. I started a marketplace to connect farmers directly to consumers and businesses. We started with the most special and expensive spice in the world; saffron, since, to be exact, I am from a saffron-farming family in northeast Iran. My goal was to connect sustainable farmers with premium and socially conscious consumers. After 6 years I left Keshmoon to move to the next level. I worked with United Nations Development Program in Iran on two short agriculture projects and later I started oostaMo; a social network for herbal tea lovers and storytellers; a place where people can discover new flavors, subscribe to them and listen to stories, and share their own; www.oostaMo.com

Right now I live in a village in the forests in the south of the Caspian Sea. Honestly to be this much in nature has been my life dream. In our small garden, we have various fruit trees. We are next to a small river and on the mountainsides.

My wife is a yoga instructor.
We have a little daughter named Afra (maple tree in Persian) who is around 7 years old and a newborn son who is around 3 months old by now (Jun 2023).

In case of emergency, you can contact me by texting 0915 316 3463 inside Iran.

PHILOSOPHY

Be honest! Learn fast!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

With love and peace and smile ;) I like to hear and talk the same as I love to communicate in silence.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I appreciate the mind that brought the CS/hospitality for strangers into reality. I have hosted I think tens of travellers and I met really lovely, open-minded, simple, and sincere people through CS. I hope this project does not get dirty by commercial ideas...

Interests

Nature, permaculture, environmentalism, self sufficient lifestyle, backpacking, riding bicycle, working with children.

• culture
• environment
• vegetarian
• yoga
• running
• reading
• cycling
• backpacking
• camping
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn (one of the best best things I have read recently), Buddha chantings, Rumi (Persian sufi person) works, Amelie Poulain (2001), Kill Bill (Part 2), Masanobu Fukuoka (Do-Nothing movement/agriculture), Sepp Holzer's Permaculture.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Singing and climbing in the rain, Leaving our city... I and a small group of my friends made small changes in our city cycling state plans (as environmental activists :)

Teach, Learn, Share

From school we are taught to compete with others, measuring ourselves by achievements, someone is first/top of others not and should try to reach him/her... we are disconnected from our evolutionary environment. Our science has broken the world/nature into many parts/fields and studied them...

What I Can Share with Hosts

How is the normal life of young people in Iran...
I can share my experience about how to start a business from zero, how to build a team, how to design the business model, how to prepare a financial model in an excel sheet, how to execute, and what online tools to use...

My wife can teach a few yoga poses :)

Countries I’ve Visited

Azerbaijan, Germany, India, Iran, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates

Countries I’ve Lived In

Iran, Netherlands

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