Museum of the Iran-Iraq War

A surprisingly interesting museum complex is located on the northern outskirts of Kerman. Its official name is the Holy Defense Museum. The complex includes the actual building of the museum, the Alley of Martyrs, an exposition of military equipment and a huge life-size model of hostilities - that is, a plot of territory imitating the fortification of Iranian and Iraqi troops.

This museum was opened with the assistance of the authorities of not only the Kerman region, but also neighboring stops. Its creator was Khan Mohammedi, a professor at Tehran University of Science and Industry. The museum has an area of 2.3 hectares, its construction was completed in 1998 for the inauguration of President Hashemi.

In the halls dedicated to the war, there are not so many samples of weapons, as is customary in similar museums in our country. There are many more photos here – often very creepy – of the real participants and victims of the war. Here and bloody children after the bombing of the school, and seventeen-year-old boys with naive faces and immutable Kalashnikov assault rifles.

But the most interesting part of the exhibition is, of course, the imitation of the front line on real terrain. Here you can freely enter the bunkers of soldiers, climb the turrets to the machine guns, contemplate the ominous rows of barbed wire and mine stretch marks. The effect is enhanced by the fact that hundreds of small loudspeakers are hung on the position, through which the sounds of the battle are very realistically broadcast - shots and explosions now and then closer, radio conversations drowned out by interference, grunting screams and swearing at the wounded. All this is complemented by the figure of a real soldier with a machine gun on the tower - the museum belongs to the army, the role of caretakers, guides and guards is performed by privates and officers.

This life-size mock-up, covering one hectare, depicts the 1986 battle in the Shalamcheh region - one of the heaviest fighting in the eight-year war that has brought so much pain to the Iranian people. Nearby in the Alley of Martyrs, busts and portraits of heroes who resisted Iraqi aggression are exhibited.