TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran Wednesday allowed the first foreign reporters to tour the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's mosque and his two-room, $86-a-month rental apartment.
Men and women clad in black, many weeping and carrying infants, joined long columns of Revolutionary Guards in a tour of the apartment and mosque in Jamaran, a suburb some 10 miles north of Tehran.
Women held red orchids in their hands, creating a view of red spots in a sea of black. The crowds made their way through iron gates policed by armed guards along the tree-lined route to the Hosseinieh Jamaran mosque.
The mosque was filled with wailing men and women. The carpets were removed from the floor, revealing concrete, and Khomeini's chair was covered with a white sheet and flowers. A portrait of the leader, who died Saturday, rested on the chair.
Linked to the mosque by a metal platform was a two-room apartment. Officials from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance said Khomeini paid $86 a month in rent for the apartment, where he lived with his wife since he came to Tehran from Qom in 1980 for a heart operation.
Khomeini's widow, Sarafi, 65, was introduced, but did not speak.
In Khomeini's simple living-room was his sheet-covered couch. On the couch was a Sony radio and a pair of eyeglasses. A television was placed on a chair on the other corner of the small room.
One official said Khomeini regularly listened to Persian-language broadcasts of the British Broadcasting Corp. and the Voice of America.
A folded mattress on which he slept was in another room. He made tea for himself every morning in a small kitchen, on a tiny stove, and would then use the outside toilet before going for a short walk.
His personal physician, Dr. Hassan Arefi, last week said Khomeini exercised by taking 25- to 30-minute walks three times a day, every day for several years, until the day before his operation May 23 to stop internal bleeding. He died Saturday.
Khomeini never moved from Jamaran since he moved there in 1980. There was no immediate word on how many times he visited the hospital between 1980 and his last trip there May 23.
His daughter and son lived nearby and brought him and his wife food daily, officials said, apparently attempting to show how simple a life Khomeini led, compared to his predecessor, the late shah of Iran.
