Garage or workshop?

[Morris Dovey]

Every now and then I get the urge to browse the world, and with the little town of Qom, Iran in the news I thought it might be interesting to explore the neighborhood and sure enough, it sorta was...

If you enjoy looking at unusual scenery, pull up

(You'll want satellite view with labels) You should see Faizabad to the west and Baqerabad to the NNW. Now zoom in on the very center of that triangle until you see little white rectangles. You should find yourself in a really interesting place with more garages than homes, and it appears the (about 45' wide) driveways don't actually connect to any streets.

After than, zoom back out until the driveways become little white dots to see just how busy these folks have been. I can tell it's a nice neighborhood because they've buried all the phone and power lines. ;)

[David Merrill]

Just keep in mind that the satellite imagery can be months or years out of date. I enjoy zooming in on my kids villa construction on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. The imagery was just updated this past month, says 2009 at the bottom, but their construction is clearly as it existed in the fall of

2008.

David Merrill

[Morris Dovey]

Agreed, although I suspect that these things will be harder to spot as time passes and imagery is updated.

A better URL might have been

'd really wanted to call up a bird's eye view, but suspect that normal photographic flyovers may be discouraged by the management.

[Robatoy]

from underneath that earthen roof, onto the pad, and......and.....and.....maybe a lost scene of Xevious.

[Rick Samuel]

Is he in New Cairo? I was there in May, loved Cairo. Best strawberry juice I ever had. If I didn't have ties back in the states, and younger, I'd move there for a while. I'm in Qatar, much different then Cairo. Count down...11 weeks

[Mark & Juanita]

Even in the US this is the case and can be different at different resolutions. A year ago, I looked up some property we used to own in Texas. At reasonable resolution, it showed the new house the current landowner had constructed on that property, but when zoomed to the highest resolution, it showed the slab for the house that the owner prior to us had put down and then was unable to build the house.

[Bart]

Pretty cool find. Secret submarine base ?

[Chris Friesen]

I'm assuming those are bunkers of some sort...anyone know what might be inside them?

Chris

[Doug Winterburn]

Not sure what's in those or these, but these are definitely bunkers. Much more obvious when driving by and viewing from ground level.

- Doug

[Morris Dovey]

LOL - I suppose the Russians nixed an original plan to put it on the Caspian shore, so they built it inland. :)

This one (a few miles west) was a bit more difficult to spot:

I still haven't spotted the enrichment facility that's been reported NE of Qom. Anyone have coordinates for that?

[Robatoy]

(Ontario Hydro as it was then called) went to Iran on loan to their power company to help out with protection and control development and lived there for over 2 years. He dreaded having to come back here to Canada. We shared many a glass of wine and I watched, with absolute awe, a few hundred colour slides he took while he was there. What a beautiful country.

[Morris Dovey]

Some parts are beautiful and some seem forbidding. I lived about 650 miles from this location across the Gulf - and thought the sand desert there was beautiful. Methinks beauty is where you choose to see it.

This area appears to have been seriously uglified. At first I wondered about the light-colored circular discolorations. Then I paid a bit of attention to where they were located and guessed that they're a less than friendly way of saying "Keep off the grass".

It seems a shame to do that to one's own backyard...

[Hoosierpopi]

the little town of Qom, Iran in the news I thought it might be interesting.

Did you see the Daily Show last night? He did a bit on Qom, Iran I can't repeat here and do it justice.

[DejaVoodoo]

on the map.

[Bart]

See Google Earth for a smattering of details. Mostly weapons storage as I recall.