NPR: Ebrahim Pourfaraj wants to build the biggest hotel in all of Iran.

He's already started his project in the far north Tehran, a wealthy zone where the city climbs up the slopes of the snow-capped Alborz Mountains.

You get out of the car, carefully stepping over the little mountain stream that flows in a channel beside the curb. After stepping through a construction trailer, you emerge on a steel-mesh platform looking over the edge of an enormous hole.

The sheer scale is amazing. Construction crews have dug a hole in a hillside, about 240 feet deep. Workers ride an orange elevator to the bottom, where we saw their tiny figures building sub-sub-sub-sub-sub basement floors.

Pourfaraj says no commercial construction site in Iran has ever gone this deep. Even through the dark sunglasses, you could read the pride on his face >>>