“The new restaurants are to address the demand of a class who drive Porsches, wear suits worth €20,000 and need to eat out,” said Saeed Leylaz, an economic analyst. “The government of [outgoing president Mahmoud] Ahmadi-Nejad created this political class but now they are only loyal to their wealth and want to have peace.” These people, who make up about 1 per cent of Tehran’s population of 12m, have the kind of wealth enviable not just by Iranian but also by international standards, said Bernard Ezraeelian, who manages Leon restaurant. They have the kind of lifestyle that means they can enjoy restaurant food most nights of the week, he said."
from : Fine restaurants spring up to serve Iran's elite
“This new class cannot be categorized easily because it is neither modern nor traditional; neither religious nor secular,” says a university scholar who is studying class conflict in Iran. “It can be considered upper class in terms of wealth, but it is not even lower class in terms of culture because the poor stick to certain traditional principles like loyalty in marriage.”
from : Anger rises over Iran's nouveaux riches
"Fancy residences not a new phenomenon in Kashan. At the outskirts of Kashan, one passes by many new two-storey houses with dramatic European designs a la Versailles, complete with flowery plasterwork, grecian arches and carved metal gates. I’m told these incongruous houses, completely out of place in their environment, are rich people’s houses. The nouveau riche I guess! Further towards the city are various furniture stores selling purple and gold brocade-cushioned furniture in curved wooden frames. It’s all a little overwhelming and OTT for me."
from : The nouveau riche in Kashan
"The source of wealth in Iran, and Tehran in particular, raises a lot of eyebrows. "No one knows where it comes from," says a graduate student of economics. "However, the oil price hikes have created so much revenue for the government, those billions must have ended up somewhere." "
from : Iran's fast, Furious and Filthy Rich
"With price controls, loans hard to come by, and oil income allowing a flood of imports, production inside Iran is unattractive. With nowhere else to put their money, Iranian investors have speculated in real estate, a phenomenon that has widened the gap between poor and rich into a chasm. Mid-level bureaucrats or high school teachers might make a monthly salary of $300, but upscale apartments in Tehran sell for $600-$1,000 per square foot. One 15,000 square foot apartment in Tehran recently sold for $21 million. A whole industry has arisen to furnish the palaces of the nouveau riche. This mix of developments—huge profits for the wealthy and unprecedented oil income on the one hand, and rising unemployment and soaring inflation on the other—is politically explosive."
from : The islamic Republic's Economic Failure
