Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – December 10, 1996

We went to the leadership office for the Eid ceremony. First I congratulated. Then Ayatollah Khamenei spoke in detail. I went to my office. I gave a feast to the guards and clerks: one thousand tomans per person. Then we went to the top of the Olympic village [located in the northwest of Tehran] to start the implementation of the Tehran-North highway. Local people were gathered in two places. They warmly welcomed and sacrificed many sheep.

[Mr. Akbar Turkan], Minister of Roads [and Transportation] and Mr. [Mohsen] Rafiq Dost, [Chairman of the Mustafazfan and Veterans Foundation] spoke at the briefing. Then I spoke after the justification on the replica of the region. 121 km of freeway with 27 km of two-way tunnels, a total of 54 km of tunnels and many bridges. The foundation implements the plan with its own capital and receives from the government favorable land on both sides of the road for settlement construction and also tolls for cars in a few years, taking into account the cost and profit.

Then we started with a bang. I got on the bulldozer and drove a bit. At the same time, on the part of Mazandaran, work also started in Marzan Abad. I spoke on the phone with the governor [of Mazandaran], where a large number of people, scholars, and officials were present at the ceremony, and I gave permission to start the work and said, in five years, we will come to Mazandaran from this same road; God willing

We came home. The children were gathered. In the evening and at night, I spent my time correcting the documents of my pre-revolution diary.