Our History

Bazar: the Beginning of its Publication and the Current Status

In 1985, a thought occurred to me that I should start a movement in Iranian community living in Montreal. At that time, six years have passed since the inauguration of Persian language school for Iranian children and teenagers. As one of the founders of this school, I was playing a role in managing this school on Saturdays.

It was one of those Saturdays that I was working in the school. Parents were chatting in school’s cafeteria, introducing themselves to each other and talking about what they were doing for a living. This event reminded me of my students’ life in Germany. At the time that I was a student in Germany, a book was published in Germany, with the title of “Who is Doing What” (Wer Macht Was). I thought over this idea and also over how to define a project out of this idea for a few days. Then I decided to share this idea with two of my colleagues in Iranian Community Center in Quebec Province who immediately welcomed my suggestion. Following this approval, we started the project and the responsibility was divided in three different areas: Ms. Mahboobeh Sadria accepted the responsibility for coordinating administrative issues; Ms. Mina Moridi started her work as the graphist and I took the responsibility for marketing.
The first book published in 1986 with the title of “Iranians’ careers in Quebec province and the East of Canada”. A few years later after this publication, I started thinking about a monthly serial for Persian-language speakers living in Montreal. Until then, there was no Persian language serial published in Montreal and this monthly serial could fill this gap.
With the great support of Dr. Mojtaba Sadria and other literate Iranians, we could publish the first issue of this serial with the title of “Doornama”. This serial was published with great expense and this made us think about a less expensive monthly serial presented in a more casual way. As the fruit of this idea, “Bazar” newspaper got published in 16 pages and it was provided with the support of Montrealians’ businessmen (mostly Iranians). Without this support, the publication of this monthly serial seemed impossible. As the time went by, the number of the total pages increased and the number of colorful pages reached to four pages. In the next stage, this serial included 12 colorful pages.
Currently, we are considering having more various material and more colorful pages. After 18 years, we are working on the construction of a webpage for this monthly serial.
I would like to take the opportunity and thank CDI corporation and its lovely staff for their great cooperation and support.

Bazar Media INC (BMI)