TEHRAN — Cool breezes wafted through the trees and water gushed down the mountainside as young Iranians sipped tea and leaned against cushions on raised wooden platforms known as a takht-e choobi.

Taking advantage of an unexpected three-day holiday provided by the government last week to reduce traffic and improve security for a summit of Non-aligned nations, Tehranis flocked to the city's Darband neighborhood, one of several popular places in the foothills of the Alborz mountains that cradle the Iranian capital from the north. Such mountain retreats provide an inexpensive escape from the summer heat and pollution — as well as from the social restrictions of the Islamic Republic that  forbid unrelated men and women from spending un-chaperoned time together.

These days, Iranians need such diversions more than ever.

Sanctions and economic mismanagement have cut the value of the local currency, the rial, compared to the dollar, so that the average monthly salary is worth only $500 compared to $1,000 a year ago. That makes it hard to pay rent of $100 or more for a tiny apartment, to buy chicken that costs $2 a pound, tomatoes that go for 50 cents a pound or gasoline at 35 cents a liter.