9 km south of Behshahr, there is a beautiful lake in the heart of the region’s forests. This is a lake that was created by constructing an old mud dam in the Safavid period to control rainwater and running water from the heights. This lake is named, Abbas Abad Lake and located in Behshahr county in Mazandaran province.
At the same time the Safavids built a garden with the design of Iranian gardens around this lake. It had a plan for transfering upstream water and directing water through narrow canals (Tanbusheh) from adjacent heights to the bottom. And with this method, the water was finally drained out of the middle of the lake like a fountain.
Somewhere in the middle of the lake, they had built an eighteen-meter-high four-arched building that still stands, with plants and trees growing on the roof of it.
When the water of the lake is completely full, the whole height of these four arches mansion goes under water and the only thing you can see is a small island in the middle of the lake water that is covered with wild plants and trees. You can not even imagine that this Iceland is merely the roof of a building, which is said to be made of clay and wood. You wonder how these trees grew on this clay roof and how this wooden roof has lasted in water and moisture for over four hundred years.
It is said that there were a mansion and a palace on this quadrangular island, and a wooden bridge connected this small island to the forest space downstream of the lake. Now there is no more news about this palace or that bridge.
Of course, another theory is that the construction of this quadrangle mansion in the middle of the lake has an engineering reason. This means that when the lake was full of water, it was drained to the downstream lands through canals under these four arches in order not to damage the dam.
The remains of an old bath and a tower are other historical buildings around the lake. Currently, the lake space and the beautiful forest environment around it are used for recreational facilities such as boating, horseback riding and restaurants.
Goole map link of Abbas Abad Lake
