Mushtaidi park – Mujtahid, reinterpreted locally as “mushtaidi” Established sometime between 1830 and 1840 by Mir Fatah Agha, a Shia cleric from Tabriz who served as an envoy between Russian and Muslim forces during the Russo-Persian Wars. Although he returned to Tabriz in 1841, German colonists continued to maintain Mushtaidi alongside their own public parks and beer gardens, for which their colonies were known. In 1853, municipal authorities acquired the garden for use as an experimental farm and public park. Mushtaidi Park’s famous Orientalist open-air restaurant (the old building still stands, if somewhat modified) hosted foreign singers, hot air balloon rides, and expositions.
The Caucasian Silk Institute occupied part of the park in 1887, raising silkworms and species of mulberry tree (of which several grand specimens remain). During the Soviet period, Mushtaidi was renamed after the Bolshevik revolutionary Sergo Orjonikidze and became home to a very particular variety of Soviet edutainment: the 1935 Children’s Railway, a scale replica of a contemporary passenger steam locomotive.
Young Pioneers not only rode, but learned to operate all aspects of a train and station. Sadly, Mushtaidi has languished in the post-Soviet decades and all that remains of the railway is the engine, preserved as a memorial of sorts.