The Way War-shattered Aleppo is treating its culture
Going to the hammam was once a beloved ritual for Aleppo resident Atef Shikhouni and his friends. Recalling the boisterous, joyful experience, the 55-year-old wrote: “Here is a man shouting, ‘Where is the soap?’ while another one is asking for the shampoo and a third wants someone to rub his back.
But that was before the outbreak of war in Syria. “Today, the bath is cold and has no soul,” the sports teacher wrote in February 2017, shortly after the worst of the fighting in Aleppo had ended.
During the fierce four-year battle for the city, which ended in late 2016, the eastern, formerly rebel-held side was devastated by bombing.
Citizens from the northern city of Aleppo, including Shikhouni, have taken it upon themselves to salvage their heritage: they’ve created a closed Facebook group where more than 52,000 Aleppians of different faiths and ethnicities share memories of their traditions and way of life before the war.
“I am afraid that we will lose a lot of tradition and vocabulary because of the immigration,” says the group’s head administrator, Souha Chaban, referring to the thousands of people who have left Aleppo since the Syrian war broke out in 2011.