Kharabat Vol. 1

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Kharabat Vol. 1: A photo archive of Iran's most enduring male subculture.

Publisher: KHAJISTAN PRESS
Author: Farhad Qashqai
Editor: Saad Khan
Language: English, Farsi
Type: Hardcover
Item Weight: 3.0 pounds
Dimensions: 8.25" x 11" (20.96 x 27.94 cm)

Tehran-based artist Farhad Qashqai’s photo book captures Iran’s Luti—a working-class male subculture born in the Qajar era (1789–1925) that endures today. To them, life is kharabat: “ruins,” a proving ground before the afterlife—the real thing. Why fear mortal laws in a world destined to be outlived?

Qashqai’s photographs—sourced from dusty albums, print relics, Telegram archives, WhatsApp forwards, and the digital graveyards of Facebook and Instagram—reveal their rituals: prison cells draped in velvet sofas, steam-wrapped bathhouses, men kissing cheeks, clasping hands, cradling pigeons like lovers. They race motorcycles, feast in smoke-filled rooms, and pose with guns, pomegranates, hash, and chai. Leather boots. Gold chains. Prayer beads. Daggers. Mothers.

What the outside world calls male bonding is air here. Loyalty binds them. What remains hidden stays between man and Maker. Defiance fuels them. This life is a rehearsal. This world, Kharabat. Look closer.