Time disappeared or something! Let's see.
On Wednesday I went to Khan el Khalili, which is a major souk in Cairo, as well as a very old marketplace--parts of it date all the way back to 1382. I love this souk. It is a warren of tiny alleys stuffed with all kinds of things, and it spreads for quite a long ways. The souk is in sections, and the part that most people see is the touristy section, which includes sellers of perfume, spices, gold and silver, antiques, mother of pearl inlaid boxes, and a large variety of tourist items. However, if you penetrate further, you can find everyday items, an ancient meat market, and items from other parts of Egypt. I went primarily to the gold market, because I have jewelry of my father's and my own which needed repair or to be sold. There's a jeweler we have been going to for years. As I worked my way through the alleys, I was saddened to see it empty of tourists--practically no one was there. It is weird to say it, because it always annoyed me in the past, but I kind of missed the aggressive salesmanship of the local men! It used to be when you walked through you got catcalled, and jillions of invitations to view this, see that, buy this...in all sorts of languages. This time they mostly drank tea and watched me go by. There were also a lot of shops which were closed.
When I walked into Michel Nasser's gold shop, it was a bit of a shock to see it completely empty of jewelry with him sitting in the back. Michel has run the shop for years, and his father owned it before him. He's one of the few jewelers in Khan el Khalili who designs and creates his own jewelry--most of it comes from factories, or from outside the country (Italy and India are two main candidates). The quality of the workmanship is noticeably different in his shop. Over a soda, Michel told me that the day after the revolution started, 73 gold shops were robbed. He was lucky and his shop was not hit, he thinks because there was nothing in the window. Other shops have been robbed since. Gold is at an all time high, and so robbing one gold shop can result in a significant amount of money. It is also hard to trace once it is melted down. Since that time, he has kept his jewelry in a vault offsite, bringing it by appointment. He still comes to sit in his empty shop though, partly from habit and partly because that's where his customers expect to see him. I think also he is sad about this change--that it is no longer safe to leave jewelry, that he can no longer display his beautiful work without fear. He looked so alone in the shop without a thing around him, and the shop, which had always sparkled before, looked shabby and sad. As I walked away, I noted a lot of other shops which were also empty but open, and a few which still displayed a lot of gold--apparently they had made expensive security upgrades to continue to be safe.
I'll post some pictures of the market later. Another thing that has changed is access to the market. Usually I have approached the market from downtown, which means the taxis let you off by a group of mosques and then there's a bridge over the street to the gold section. As we approached, I was shocked to see the bridge gone and people crossing the street and going though a knocked-out section of fence. This is one of the busiest streets in Cairo, with 3 lanes on constant traffic on both sides. It is madness not to have a crossover! Apparently, there was an electrical fire even before the revolution and the bridge simply melted and has not been rebuilt, for reasons unknown. There's a tunnel, further up the street, but people simply go across (since they do that everywhere else in Cairo, there's no real reason not to I guess, but it makes traffic very freaky between cars, donkey carts and humans). My cousin's office driver took me up there, and picked me up, which was really nice--he dropped me on the correct side.
On Wednesday I went to Khan el Khalili, which is a major souk in Cairo, as well as a very old marketplace--parts of it date all the way back to 1382. I love this souk. It is a warren of tiny alleys stuffed with all kinds of things, and it spreads for quite a long ways. The souk is in sections, and the part that most people see is the touristy section, which includes sellers of perfume, spices, gold and silver, antiques, mother of pearl inlaid boxes, and a large variety of tourist items. However, if you penetrate further, you can find everyday items, an ancient meat market, and items from other parts of Egypt. I went primarily to the gold market, because I have jewelry of my father's and my own which needed repair or to be sold. There's a jeweler we have been going to for years. As I worked my way through the alleys, I was saddened to see it empty of tourists--practically no one was there. It is weird to say it, because it always annoyed me in the past, but I kind of missed the aggressive salesmanship of the local men! It used to be when you walked through you got catcalled, and jillions of invitations to view this, see that, buy this...in all sorts of languages. This time they mostly drank tea and watched me go by. There were also a lot of shops which were closed.
When I walked into Michel Nasser's gold shop, it was a bit of a shock to see it completely empty of jewelry with him sitting in the back. Michel has run the shop for years, and his father owned it before him. He's one of the few jewelers in Khan el Khalili who designs and creates his own jewelry--most of it comes from factories, or from outside the country (Italy and India are two main candidates). The quality of the workmanship is noticeably different in his shop. Over a soda, Michel told me that the day after the revolution started, 73 gold shops were robbed. He was lucky and his shop was not hit, he thinks because there was nothing in the window. Other shops have been robbed since. Gold is at an all time high, and so robbing one gold shop can result in a significant amount of money. It is also hard to trace once it is melted down. Since that time, he has kept his jewelry in a vault offsite, bringing it by appointment. He still comes to sit in his empty shop though, partly from habit and partly because that's where his customers expect to see him. I think also he is sad about this change--that it is no longer safe to leave jewelry, that he can no longer display his beautiful work without fear. He looked so alone in the shop without a thing around him, and the shop, which had always sparkled before, looked shabby and sad. As I walked away, I noted a lot of other shops which were also empty but open, and a few which still displayed a lot of gold--apparently they had made expensive security upgrades to continue to be safe.
I'll post some pictures of the market later. Another thing that has changed is access to the market. Usually I have approached the market from downtown, which means the taxis let you off by a group of mosques and then there's a bridge over the street to the gold section. As we approached, I was shocked to see the bridge gone and people crossing the street and going though a knocked-out section of fence. This is one of the busiest streets in Cairo, with 3 lanes on constant traffic on both sides. It is madness not to have a crossover! Apparently, there was an electrical fire even before the revolution and the bridge simply melted and has not been rebuilt, for reasons unknown. There's a tunnel, further up the street, but people simply go across (since they do that everywhere else in Cairo, there's no real reason not to I guess, but it makes traffic very freaky between cars, donkey carts and humans). My cousin's office driver took me up there, and picked me up, which was really nice--he dropped me on the correct side.
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