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Recently on a bus trip from Rasht, Iran, to Tehran, Iran, the driver's assistant came down the bus aisle, ordering all the curtains closed on one side, and for a few minutes we were actually forbidden from looking out the windows on that side!

I can only assume he didn't want a hassle with military or something with people seeing ... 'something'? It was a local bus, mostly (we were the only foreigners as far as I know), and was a regularly scheduled normal bus.

We'd just passed Sefid Rud Lake, and heading south, it was on the right side of the bus. As best I can tell, we were on or close to this section of road in google maps (I took a GPS reading a short time later).

I'm wondering what was on that section of the road that we weren't allowed to see? I asked my Iranian friends, but they didn't know either. Just a military base or something else?

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    Saw plenty of mosques, no problems seeing those :/
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Sep 1, 2015 at 12:50
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    Given that - judging from the answer so far - this question might be drawing attention to the location of a nuclear research centre, I do hope you waited until after you'd left Iran before posting this :-)
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Commented Sep 1, 2015 at 16:36
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    Iran is busy constructing missile bases in that area.
    – Count Iblis
    Commented Sep 1, 2015 at 17:18
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    @user568458 6 countries ago ;)
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Sep 2, 2015 at 1:44
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    You can't just hide a suspected nuclear site by closing the curtains. Especially given that that's a public road anyone has access to (including IAEA inspectors). As an Iranian I'd say it's much more probable that the driver wanted to spread this gossip than there being any nuclear activity.
    – Azad
    Commented Sep 15, 2015 at 10:32

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According to this map from the Nuclear Threat Initiative (2006), your GPS reading at the western bend of the road between Rasht and Qazvin corresponds almost perfectly to "Mo-Allem Kalayeh: Suspected nuclear research center".

However! This (ancient) page gives the site's coordinates as 36°26'05"N 50°29'53"E, which is a) a lot closer to where Wikipedia thinks Moallem Kalayeh (معلم كلايه‎) is located, and b) nowhere near where you went. That said, the FAS site seems to be simply matching names to towns, so it's by no means clear which of the two is wrong...

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