"... to get a sense of the Zoroastrian community's fragility, we didn't have to travel very far from Yazd. Zein Abad, some 12 miles away on the road to Taft, is one of dozens of nearly deserted Zoroastrian villages that dot the area. The villages are ethereally beautiful, each one a low earthen hamlet centered on a lone cypress tree... The bleat of goats drifts into the deserted streets. Nearly all the homes have been abandoned... Fifty years ago, there were 77 families here; now, only 12 aging souls remain."