The Dushanbe Tea House

Boulder has a tea house that was a gift from its sister city in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The tea house was constructed in various places in that country over a period of three years. Each part is hand painted, hand carved,  hand-worked metal. It arrived in 1990 in 200 crates. I think it is interesting that while it took three years for the craftsmen to create it, it was eight more years before it was assembled and ready for the opening. A crew of Tajik artisans even accompanied the teahouse to assist with the assembly. Sounds like they may have run into some "red tape," doesn't it?  (Having been formerly part of the Soviet Union, you might have expected that they would have been familiar with that. Red, get it? Oh, well.)

The lovely front entrance:

We did not go inside and I think that was probably a mistake. Looking online at the photographs, shows that it was stunning in where they were serving dinner.

Here are the pictures I took of some of the details of the exterior. Most of what you see here are ceramic panels. The designs are Persian. 

Such colors in the patterns!