If you walked from Montezuma down Gurley to, say, the Grill, you may have noticed this exotic gent in the window of the Peace of My Heart Shop. Sadly, he may soon be history. He's part of the promo for The Caspian Gate, which has occupied the rear room of the Fair Trade shop of late.
So what type of merchandise would you find in a place called The Caspian Gate? Basically, costumes. But not your everyday clown or top hat or cowboy dress-up outfit. Not even a Victorian tea party frock.
No, these costumes are from far and from fanciful places. Bangles for the likes of the belly dancers of Troupe Salamant, for example. Elaborate medieval finery for Renaissance Fairs. Beaded caftans, kimonos and robes from the Far East. That sort of thing. Wonderful, luxurious stuff to look at and wist for. Hand crafted.
Not exactly what you would call walk-in merchandise. Especially for a smallish city in the mountains of Arizona that brags about its rodeo. So the retail tents of The Caspian Gate are folding at the end of the month; just incidentally, there is a discount being offered. But if you don't get a chance to look in at the store before it closes, don't fret -- the Merchants have a presence on the internet.
Yes, I wondered about the background of the name and did consult The Google to find out more. Livius had this to say:The Caspian Gate is mentioned in several ancient sources as a mountain pass on the road between Rhagae (more or less identical to modern Tehran) and Hecatompylos, the capital of Parthia, south of modern Damghan. The Caspian Gate is almost certainly identical with the pass between modern Eyvanakey and Aradan. The road is very ancient indeed: this is the course of the Silk road. Today, there is a highway that connects Tehran with Mashad. The Caspian Gate was once the border between Media and Parthia. During the war against the Macedonian invader Alexander the Great, the last Achaemenid king Darius III Codomannus selected this place as his final stand (summer 330).
Dressing up in costume can be great fun, tho the more splendid the get-up, usually the heavier it is -- a big consideration at my age! Imagine one's clothing wearing one out. And costumes can be quite pricey, too. My granddaughter's outfit for her ballet debut cost $85, for a one-time use! On the other hand, her mom bought her several secondhand ballet confections for dress-up play on eBay for $10-15.
So... enjoy the costumes; imagine a caravan passing through the actual Caspian Gate as it travels the Silk Road to bring remarkable goods from exotic lands...
...to an on-line merchant with headquarters in Prescott, Arizona, of all places.
Notes: On the subject of faraway places, I found an interesting blog by an American woman in Saudi Arabia, Sand Gets in My Eyes. And I discovered that there's such a thing as an aloe tree, if you can imagine; My Aloe Garden has pictures.
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