TEHRAN- A permanent handicrafts marketplace is under construction in Hormuz Island to assist local artisans in putting products directly on sale.

The marketplace is expected to generate sustainable income for craftspeople of the island, Hormozgan province’s tourism chief said on Monday.

The bazaar, being constructed on a piece of land covering 400 square meters, will help generate jobs for 40 people after its inauguration, Sohrab Banavand explained.

With its colorful soils, salt caves and mountains, and ocher-stained streams and beaches, Iran’s Hormuz Island in the Persian Gulf packs a big punch. It resembles a salt dome—a teardrop-shaped mound of rock salt, gypsum, anhydrite, and other evaporites that have risen upward through overlying layers of rock.

Most of its visitors are day-trippers, who come from Bandar Abbas or Qeshm Island, so even the only settlement. Some say that Hormuz is a sleepy little village that kicks off its shoes each evening and relaxes into mellow contemplation of the setting sun!

The ocher soil on the island has proven appealing to cooks, artists, and miners alike. Locals reportedly use the red soil to season a certain type of bread. Groups of artists have used it to create expansive sand carpets. Sand from a mine in the northern part of the island has also been used in paints, cosmetics, ceramic tiles, and the exteriors of buildings.

The arid island gets unbelievably hot during midday so ideally, winter may be the best time to pay a visit. In the summertime, its temperate can rise to over 43 °C. Traditionally, its reddish soil, which indigenous people call “Golak”, is used for making local foodstuff for decorative arts and even as spices for cooking fish to making pickled vegetables.

AFM