New Look Damascus

The ancient capital of the Umayyads is starting to look and feel different as dozens of its ancient mansions are being transformed into boutiques and hotels. Do the Damascenes like this, or are they frowning upon the greatest face-lift to ever overcome their city?

Restaurants and cafes are so yesterday; boutique-hotels are the latest rage in old Damascus. Syrians and foreigners alike have been visiting old Damascus to see how the traditional Damascene houses have been transformed into re-furbished and inviting boutique-hotels of four to 40 rooms. Examples include Beit el Mamlouka Hotel, (rated one of the top hotels on tripadvisor.com), Talisman, Beit el Yasmin and still impending is Beit el Farehy. Each hotel promises to take you back in time to Syria’s traditional way of life where you will be sipping hot zhoorat, peeling juicy oranges plucked from your tree while sitting around the soothing water fountain.

There are about 70 restaurants, six working boutique-hotels and 20 currently rehabilitating to open, as explained by architect Bishry Birry from Beit Anbar. These restaurants and hotels are scattered all over Old Damascus with no particular concentration. The restaurants, though, are allocated in the more commercial areas since they attract a large number of people. Boutique-hotels, on the other hand, are considered residential by the master plan of Damascus and can be located within residential neighborhoods. The rehabilitation of an old Damascene house to a boutique-hotel is not a simple matter although many Syrians and foreigners are given the green light by the municipality to go ahead and create them. Depending on the condition and location of the house, as well as the number of rooms, the cost of such an investment can range from about 1-20 million SP and a completion period of anywhere between 6-months to two years. Many Syrians tend to partner with foreign organizations or Arab investors for financial help, while they manage the hotel themselves.

Furthermore, rehabilitating these presently dilapidated houses requires a team of experts and professionals to use the same tools and material originally used to construct these places.

This is also stated in the master plan of Damascus where rehabilitating old Damascene houses should be regulated to maintain the true identity of Damascus. This, however, is rarely executed since many rehabilitators re-sort to cement modern day architecture material.
It costs less money, time and pleases the investors.

Why wouldn’t investors be so eager to open up these boutique-hotels? With one room in one of these hotels ranging from $70 to $400, along with the occasional dinners, weddings and birthdays; the owners may have finally found their golden goose. In addition, profit is estimated at 120% to 150% with no losses guaranteed; the restaurants require pre-reservation and the rooms of these boutique-hotels are al-ways occupied. Business is booming. Passersby and residents of old Damascus also think that this business is rewarding. “It lifts the whole neighbor-hood from the poverty it is in,” claims Amira a resident of old Damascus. Her older sister agrees and adds, “It livens and diversifies the neighborhood and restores the old houses making the harat (alleys) look nice”. Other residents claim that they would not mind giving up their own homes for this sort of investment if they are properly compensated to move into new Damascus. Others however, like Bassem Said, who has been living in his old Damascene house for the past 25 years, claims that he would never leave old Damascus, “My house is worth three million SP, one business-man offered me 15 million SP to move out and I didn’t.” He continued, “If he offered 25 million SP, I would not even consider it.”

To Said, living in his old Damascene house is better than living in a sardine-can-like apartment in the suburbs of Damascus. He enjoys hearing the call to prayer from the many mosques close by to his house, being in the security of the same neighbors, sitting in his own house, underneath his own orange tree, around his own soothing fountain. <br />
Yet, this is not preventing the development of boutique-hotels or restaurants and cafes. With the business of boutique-hotels on the rise in the old city, the master plan of Damascus at-tempted at balancing this phenomenon by decreasing the number of restaurants. Birry noted that about a year and a half ago licenses for restaurants were suspended due to an overflow of the number of restaurants found in the old city. Other sources, however, indicate that it was the overflow of something else.

The infrastructure of the old city of Damascus cannot sustain the excessive daily use of water. This causes the flooding of sewage water from the decrepit pipes to the streets of the old city. Not to mention, many neighbors complain of the noise and music that diffuses from these restaurants late into the night. This is why the master plan of Damascus decided to discontinue granting licenses to restaurants while also prohibiting boutique-hotels from having dining halls and offering food besides breakfast.

So it seems that the old city of Damascus is trapped between a rising tourist industry and a clinging old residential quarter with each side pulling the rope tight. The question is though, who will win? Will owners hold on to their traditional houses like Said, or sell them for the money-spinning business?

To answer this question, one must take into consideration that many of the residents of the old city of Damascus are renters, with several sharing the same house with three to five other families, while many of the owners have moved out to new Damascus. Hence, these renters cannot afford the annual expenses of restoring the houses. Some even claim that they would leave these houses if paid a good amount of money. This leaves the old city with more empty and abandoned houses to turn into investments; leading to gentrification. Gentrification is simply the process whereby old and dilapidated neighborhoods are rehabilitated and re-stored thus, increasing property value rates whilst bringing a new population to the neighborhood.

Though beneficial to the restoration and beautification of the neighborhood, this is harmful to the poorer residents (especially renters) where they are pushed out of their neighborhood due to high prices and demographic change. When real-estate prices increase, owners want to take advantage of the situation, upgrade their houses and use them to demand higher rents or sell them to investors who are willing to buy at very high prices. This causes a change in the character of the city where the only persons residing there would be the ones who can afford to pay for the upgraded and fancy neighborhoods.

“It’s like the original Damascenes are not living in their houses but are being replaced by foreign tourists” says Laila Hamdan, an interior designer specialized in rehabilitating old Damascene houses. “The whole of old Damascus is becoming a kitchen and a living room”, she continues, “It does not say any-thing about the identity of Damascus and the Damascenes” Hamdan does not object to the transfer of these homes into hotels but protests the way in which they are “rehabilitated” disregarding the true identity of Damascus, its heritage and art. She ex-plains that there are certain tools and materials that should be used in the paint, the walls, and the beautifully intricate ceilings that are simply not being used today.

“The investors just want a quick imitation of what a true Damascene house looks like to open business quickly,” she says, “They do not care about the houses.” It is still vague as to who is right and who is wrong in this matter, or if there is a right or wrong. If residents remain living in the area as they are now, many of the houses will dilapidate further while not being maintained as they should be. On the other hand, if the municipality continues to grant licenses for boutique-hotels, the area will be-come “nice” but the old city of Damascus will turn into a “kitchen and a living room.”

It’s a tough one to crack? Yet, it seems that both sides seem to agree on one thing; they both are con-fused as to what a real Damascene house looks like. Each brochure claims that its boutique-hotel is the original and traditional Damascene house, yet each having a different look. It may be argued that these houses embody a canvas for the representation of Syria’s culture to some Arab and mostly foreign tourists, or that they are simply outlets for the marketing of Syrian heritage as profitable investment. As a foreigner myself, residing in Syria, I see them as exquisite masterpieces of Syria’s identity no matter how different they are from each other; combined they indicate Damascus. For a resident Syrian, well, I will let Syrian readers decide.