- You absolutely must visit Syria! - insisted Damir. - I’ve traveled quite a bit, but there is no land better than Syria on our planet...
I met Damir Akmanov a couple of years ago. An interesting person, a patron, the Kyrgyz Tretyakov. An art connoisseur, entrepreneur, he has his own business in Syria. But most importantly, he is a good guy.
Damir's stories and assurances did their job, and the "Syria virus" settled in my soul. We discussed the program in general terms with Damir. "Don't worry, my guys will do everything in the best way," assured Akmanov.
We bought tickets for the route Bishkek — Istanbul - Gaziantep. Gaziantep is a Turkish city bordering Syria. The Syrian border is 50 km away. There, we will be met and taken to Aleppo. Everything else will follow the program...
It was February. Winter was competing with spring for power. As instructed by Damir, we flew with "Turkish Airlines" to Istanbul - Gaziantep. Five hours to Istanbul and an hour and a half to Gaziantep.
A small city surrounded by desert yellow plateaus with well-kept olive groves. We were met by two Arabs, and in a taxi, we rushed south towards the Turkish-Syrian border.
At the border, there were no problems: a stamp in the passport, and happy travels! But the Syrian border was more meticulous. Here, drivers with our passports long "shuttled" from one building to another. Finally, it came to scanning the fingerprint of the right thumb. A search, and finally, Syrian land!
The first surprise - we were met by Damir Akmanov! It felt like a mirage. Just the day before yesterday in Bishkek, I discussed the details of our trip with him. There was not a word about him personally meeting us at the border. And here is a pleasant surprise. Yes, the world is becoming "smaller," and the distance of several thousand kilometers is no longer a problem.
Upon entering Aleppo, we were greeted by a bright festive sunset. Aleppo is not a small city at all: three million residents. It also has a venerable age. Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, English, French... have all left their mark here. A city of human history.
Our hotel "Baron" is located in the central part of the old city; it is an ancient building resembling a castle. Not the best hotel in Aleppo. According to the memorial plaque, it was built in 1909 by an Armenian baron. The time and spirit of that era have been quietly living in the spacious massive rooms for over a hundred years, hiding from the eyes of restorers. The main attraction of the hotel is the memory that the famous writer Agatha Christie lived here for a long time while working on the novel "Murder on the Orient Express." Another famous person who stayed at the "Baron" was Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman cosmonaut.
I was lucky: Agatha Christie's room was free and became my refuge for two whole days. Christie wrote most of her novel sitting on a balcony overlooking a noisy street. I also wrote these lines in my diary under the sounds of the evening city of Aleppo.
The day ended at a national restaurant. A truly bright and noisy place. Attentive and very polite staff surrounded Damir, showing genuine heartfelt attention. In an instant, the table turned into an exhibition of Eastern dishes, drinks, and sweets. Soft pillows at our sides, the smoke of the hookah, soothing music transported us into one of the Eastern fairy tales. Here it is, "A Thousand and One Nights"!
Before returning to the hotel, Damir suggested a short tour of the streets of nighttime Aleppo.
We visited various shops with sweets and juices. Everyone greeted him by name. Many people on the street nodded to Damir and said in Russian: "Hello!" And this in a three-million city! Perhaps the Armenian baron who built the "Baron" hotel on Baron Street was just as well-known in Aleppo.
Despite the fatigue, I woke up very early. It was half past four in the morning. But I felt quite rested and energetic. Today we have a whole day in Aleppo. The program includes visits to historical monuments and picnics.
The grand fortress known as the Citadel, located on a hill in the center of old Aleppo, is in excellent condition. The stone steps at the entrance have worn down and become wavy over the years. The impregnable, towering, and thick walls at the top of the hill are surrounded by a huge moat, which once held water. Inside the Citadel, everything is well-preserved: stone-paved streets, houses, temples, baths, palaces. The peak of the Citadel's glory dates back to the Byzantine period. In general, all have contributed to the architecture of the fortress, including the new authorities who built an amphitheater for performances by modern artists.
You can wander around the perimeter of the fortress walls for a long time, enjoying the views of the city below, the expanses beyond the city, and the low mountains on the horizon.
The next attraction of Aleppo is the magnificent covered market "Madina." The largest market in the East. The total length of all its streets and passages is over 14 kilometers. There are more than twenty thousand shops where you can find everything your heart desires: food, fabrics, jewelry, clothing, household items... - a gigantic supermarket that has migrated from the depths of time into modernity! The world of the East and its philosophy of life, a museum of time and trade... You can wander, explore, and enjoy the colors and sounds of this world endlessly, but the density of our program pushes us further.
After emerging from the labyrinths of "Madina," we headed out of the city towards the Euphrates. There, away from the hustle, dust, and smoke of the city, lies a vast recreation area with developed infrastructure: restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels. We have an official dinner at the invitation of Damir's partner - Ilyaz. I won’t go into details of this wonderfully organized event; I will just say that there was plenty of meat, wine, vodka, whiskey, and what happened afterward is better left unsaid.
In the morning, a drizzling rain began.
Our destination is Palmyra, which is only 350 kilometers away. However, we have many sites to visit along the way. The first stop is the ancient city-kingdom of Ebla. The rain prevented us from fully exploring this ancient center of human civilization. Under the cover of umbrellas, we viewed the excavated city from the main hill. Italian archaeologist Paolo Mattia, the discoverer of Ebla, said that every person on Earth has two homelands: one where they were born, and the other is Ebla in the land of Syria.
Until the second half of the 20th century, Ebla was known only by name, found in biblical sources. Paolo Mattia's expedition in 1974-75 discovered the ruins of the fortress of Ebla, monuments of Eblaite material culture and art, statues, household items, and a vast cuneiform archive, including business documents and literary works, particularly myths.
Based on the excavation results, Mattia concluded that the city of Ebla existed as an already inhabited territory in the 4th millennium BC. The name "Ebla" means "White Rock," probably due to the limestone on which the city was built. It was the capital of the oldest rich, prosperous, and cultural state of the same name, with a total population of about 300 thousand people engaged in trade.
Paolo Mattia considers Ebla to be a vast wealthy metropolis for its time. With the start of archaeological excavations, numerous ruins of houses, temples, water reservoirs were discovered in Ebla. It was a fortified city surrounded by an impressive fortress wall made of stone blocks, with four gates and an acropolis. The acropolis housed temples and the royal palace. The number of servants reached 12 thousand people, and about 50 thousand lived within the city walls.
Ebla's trading partners included Beirut, Damascus, Gaza, Megiddo... Trade required documentary accounting, thus contributing to the development of writing. The archive found in the palace of Ebla consists of more than 17 thousand clay tablets and fragments with texts written in cuneiform from the 25th to the 23rd centuries BC. This allowed scholars to study the ancient state quite thoroughly.
Here is a statement about the significance of the discoveries of Ebla by the famous historian Alexander Vishnevsky:
"The main value of the Ebla archives lies in the fact that they testify to a great state that existed in the third millennium BC, revealing its administrative, economic, social, and religious structure. But in a broader sense, we encounter a completely new and unfamiliar world of northwestern Semitic culture. This is a civilization that forever changed our perception of ancient history."
The rain subsided for a while, and I managed to run through the stone streets of ancient Ebla. The rocky slopes of the hill revealed the eye sockets of caves. At the foot, the foundations of palaces, stone pyramids, and pools were visible. Just think, these walls and structures are over four thousand years old! Reflect on the numbers. Perhaps Mattia is right that it is here - the cradle of human civilization.
However, a hundred kilometers west of Ebla, near the Mediterranean coast, lies another cradle of human civilization - the city of Ugarit. This Syrian city-state existed from the 23rd to the 12th century BC. The first information about it was obtained from Egyptian documents. The ruins of Ugarit were found in the area of Ras Shamra, where systematic archaeological excavations began in 1929 under the direction of K. Shefer, yielding many invaluable discoveries. Ruins of tombs and temples, sculptural representations of gods, arrows, weapons, vessels, and other household items were found. The most significant finds were texts written in an unknown alphabetic cuneiform script. Signs denoting musical sounds were also discovered. French specialists managed to reproduce these sounds on modern musical instruments. Now the music of the ancient world, born from the Ugaritic civilization, plays at my home, reminding me of a wonderful encounter with history.
The texts of Ugarit helped not only to read many linguistically difficult passages of the Old Testament but also to get closer to the realities of the Old Testament era. French archaeologists discovered many diverse documents: lists of sacrifices, lists of officials, craftsmen, and warriors. They provide valuable information about professions, the social composition of the population, and the units of war chariots. Most of this material dates back to the time of Ugarit's flourishing, to the period between the 16th and 12th centuries BC (Brockhaus Biblical Encyclopedia).
Passing through the massive stone gates, we enter a staircase leading into the ancient city. Its dimensions are truly enormous. The labyrinths of streets and the remnants of stone structures of palaces and temples, like trenches, carve up the elongated hill of Ras Shamra from east to west. From its summit, one can see the western part of the ancient city-state.
We arrived in Palmyra at seven in the evening. It was already dark. We settled in the "Tripilon" hotel and just twenty minutes later, we headed for dinner in a Bedouin village. Unfortunately, it was not a real one, but a specially organized one for tourists. A huge, designer-styled tent of over 100 square meters resembled a sultan's tent. Bedouin songs, dances, drinks. Little reminded of the real life of Bedouins. Here, another god reigns, the only and most important one - the god of money, and it feels uncomfortable.
History credits the discovery of Palmyra to the Italian Pietro Della Valle. In the 17th century, travelers faced great difficulties reaching Palmyra, and when they returned to Europe, they were simply not believed: a city in the Syrian desert - is that even possible? Then travel essays and detailed descriptions of the city appeared. By the way, one of the authors was the Russian traveler L. Pashkova.
Since ancient times, locals have called Palmyra Tadmor, which means "to be wonderful, beautiful." The city seems to continue the surrounding nature, and therefore its beauty is quiet and natural, composed of the yellow sand of the valley, lemon-colored hills, and countless columns with curly capitals resembling palm crowns. To this day, Palmyra has remained natural, and therefore the golden, sun-heated walls of its temples are still adorned with carved leaves, clusters of grapes, camels, and donkeys...
Palmyra began with Efka - an underground spring with warm water that smells of sulfur. Travelers, wanderers, and merchants would stop here, set up tents for the night, and water their weary camels, horses, and donkeys. Over time, a whole city grew up around Efka. In the 1st millennium BC, on this caravan route leading from Damascus to the Euphrates coast, it turned into a city of inns and taverns, traders, and adventurers.
Here, slaves and maidens from Egypt and Asia Minor, from India and Arabia were sold. Gradually, Palmyra became the capital of the Palmyrene state with its own ruler, senate, and popular assembly.
The Romans, during the war with the Parthians (41 AD), tried to seize Palmyra. Under Trajan, it was destroyed by Roman troops, but Hadrian restored it and renamed it Adrianople, granting its rulers some independence, thinking to keep them from allying with the Parthians. Around 212 AD, Palmyra was declared a Roman colony and handed over to a local native, senator Septimius Odenatus.
After a campaign against the Persians, Odenatus was killed by his nephew Mionius in 267, and his wife Zenobia ascended the Palmyrene throne, significantly expanding the borders of her state and even dreaming of subjugating Rome itself. Under her, Palmyra reached its peak. Emperor Aurelian decided to break the proud queen's defiance and forced Palmyra to surrender in 273. Zenobia became Aurelian's prisoner, and her capital was devastated. Many years later, Justinian attempted to restore the ruined city, but he could not return it to its former glory. Finally, Palmyra was destroyed by the Arabs in 774.
For many years, no one cared about the brilliant history of this amazing city. Human oblivion and the encroaching sands of the Syrian desert finally consumed the remnants of Palmyra.
Ancient Palmyra, divine Palmyra. Here it is, right next to the hotel windows behind a rare row of curly palms. Unlike other tourist groups that prefer to travel by bus from temple to temple, we walk. I am convinced that to understand Palmyra, one must walk through the city from edge to edge, to feel oneself not as a tourist, but as a resident of this ancient beautiful city.
Palmyra had many temples. They were built with care. But the most revered was Baal - the God of the sun, to whom the main and most interesting temple not only of Palmyra but of the entire Middle East was dedicated. The area of its central hall was 200 square meters. A marvel of yellow marble. Just think about how it was built so that after two thousand years, through wars and natural disasters, the grandeur of the design, the beauty and essence, the soul and philosophy of that time were preserved!
But the temple of Baal is only part of Palmyra. These monumental gates made of basalt, granite, and marble were constructed at the end of the 1st century AD. A huge 20-meter arch rests on double columns, and two smaller ones on the sides lead to the side sidewalks. The main commercial thoroughfare was the Street of Columns, which divided the city into two parts. Along its entire length stretched a paved road lined with four rows of columns. These colonnades divided it into three parts. The middle, wider one served for the passage of carriages; the two narrower side ones were for pedestrians.
There were a total of 1,400 columns, with 375 in each row. The entire area of the former city is covered with fragments of capitals, sculptural friezes, and other architectural fragments, among which, to the west of the Temple of the Sun, the remnants of other temples, palaces, colonnades, altars, aqueducts, and pedestals are visible. From the amphitheater located in the upper part of the city, behind the crumbling city wall in the southeast lies a small valley necropolis with numerous burial caves and family tombs, built in the form of towers from huge stone blocks.
How beautiful and majestic all this must have been, if even now the miserable remains of the ruins are so breathtaking that it takes your breath away!
Yes, the empire had slaves, there was building stone, and there was desire. But that is not enough! Sculptors, artists, architects were needed. And they were found! And what a talent they had! Even in ruins, a high degree of harmony and authorial talent is visible. Thinking people were needed, possessing much knowledge, able to find technological and engineering solutions. Palmyra proves that all this existed in the Roman Empire, and the Street of Columns is proof of that.
On the top of one of the neighboring hills stands an ancient Arab fortress. From its towers, a panorama of Palmyra and its surroundings opens up. It’s a pity that the distances were shrouded in haze, so the panoramic shots of Palmyra turned out to be not very bright.
Are Syria or any other country today capable of creating anything similar? I think not. Everything that was created in ancient Palmyra had a spiritual and cultural character, there was a striving for harmony and grandeur. And how sad it is that all this has collapsed. A civilization that left hundreds of cities over a vast territory of the Middle East, Asia Minor, and North Africa has sunk into oblivion under the onslaught of less developed hordes of barbarians.
Almost the same fate befell another great ancient city - Apamea, located two hundred kilometers northwest of Palmyra.
From my diary. The history of Apamea can begin in 333 BC when Alexander the Great, after defeating the Persian king Darius, became the master of vast territories. He decided to unite the two greatest empires of the East and West - Persia and Greece, and to accelerate integration, he ordered his commanders to marry Persian princesses and arranged a grand mass wedding in Susa (now in Iran). The new name for the city was given by Seleucus I Nicator in honor of his wife Apama, the daughter of Spitamenes, the leader of the Persians in the war against Alexander, whom he married in Susa in 324 BC.
Apamea is one of the most interesting, yet unexplored ancient cities. Only one street, the Cardo Maximus, has been excavated, stretching over two kilometers. In the Roman era, a grand colonnade was erected along its entire length, which stood for nearly a thousand years. The columns of the Cardo Maximus are the pinnacle of ancient monumental architecture. The beauty of the city enchants, captivates, penetrating every cell. It flows, enveloping you in a gentle, peaceful stream. You don’t want to leave this place.
Chronicles testify that Apamea had no less than 400 thousand inhabitants. During the time of Seleucus I, the city housed an army, which, in addition to horses, had 500 war elephants. Here was the oracle known throughout the ancient world, on the site of which the Romans later erected the Temple of Fate, the ruins of which have survived to this day.
Currently, the territory of the city is almost entirely hidden underground. Just stepping away, freeing oneself from the enchanting captivity of the columns, looking at the surrounding green spaces, it becomes clear that the surrounding gentle elevations are temples and streets, palaces and theaters. Move further, and you will see marble arches and the edges of stone walls protruding from the green slope. One can only guess what treasures lie beneath these green mounds.
Finally, a bright sunny day. Syria is bursting with vibrant colors. A transparent, warm, joyful morning, and we are heading south towards the borders of Jordan, to the ancient city of Boeotia. And Damascus is surprisingly sparsely populated. Perhaps because today is Friday, a day of prayers in the Arab world, when one cannot work, explains our guide Salam.
Boeotia is 110 kilometers from Damascus. The road takes us past well-kept fields, olive groves, and slender cypress trees reaching for the sky like elegant green minarets.
A lively tourist trail runs through Boeotia, leading from Syria to Jordan. All this is for the beautifully preserved Roman amphitheater and the ancient city built at the dawn of our era from black volcanic tuff. At first glance, the amphitheater resembles a fortress surrounded by impregnable towers and a deep moat. This diverse combination arose due to the following circumstances.
For some reason, the Romans unexpectedly abandoned the city. The nearby desert soon buried it in sand. Crusaders, a thousand years later, discovered the amphitheater and the city, cleared everything of sand, and gave it the appearance of a fortress. This idea developed further after the Arabs arrived. By the way, Muslims skillfully used Roman and Byzantine Christian temples as mosques. There are countless examples of this in Turkey, Jordan, and Syria.
However, let’s return to Boeotia and cross the stone bridge adorned with sculptures and columns to enter the fortress - the theater. It turned out that the fortress is just the outer part. Inside, the theater opens up in all its glory.
Old paved roads lead to large gates towering over the city. The bright, colorful clothing of the residents looks strikingly solemn against the backdrop of the dreary, half-ruined dark basalt walls. The city stretches north of the amphitheater. Several colonnaded streets lead to it, climbing up the gentle slopes of the hills. Temples, towers, squares, baths, half-ruined houses, wells, arches. Arabs still live in the preserved houses today.
The black color of the stone, desolation, dirt, and garbage give the city a generally fatal appearance. Breaking away from the group and wandering far into the labyrinth of streets, I roamed for a long time, driving away gloomy thoughts, while all this time, from invisible speakers, the mournful prayer of the muezzin soared over the spaces of the city, filling the soul with anxiety.
...Damascus is the oldest of capitals and the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.
In the first half of the 1st millennium, Damascus played a leading role in continental Syria. Located at the crossroads of several caravan routes, it received iron from Cappadocia, and Damascus blacksmiths produced excellent weapons. Wool was brought to the capital from the neighboring steppes and resold in Tyre. The rise of Damascus was associated with the resettlement of Arameans here at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Soon, the Aramaic language became widely used as a second spoken language in many countries of the Middle East and was used in official Assyrian documents. In the second half of the 10th century BC, Damascus was the main center of the Arameans in Syria.
The city is repeatedly mentioned in the Bible. Many episodes of the Old Testament and significant events described in the New Testament after the crucifixion of Christ are associated with it. The eastern part of the city, predominantly inhabited by Christians, reminds us that this was one of the centers of Christianity.
Among the more recent attractions of Damascus, the Umayyad Mosque deserves attention. Three minarets reaching for the sky, massive stone walls with columns and the Temple of Jupiter Damascenus dominate the very center of the old city. It is not difficult to recognize the familiar Byzantine style in the massive walls, arches, and colonnades. In short, the masterpiece of Muslim architecture in Damascus is the Byzantine temple to which minarets were attached, and in the spacious inner courtyard, a Mihrab was built.
As is known, the thought is not new. The Turks, as we know, painted over Christian symbols and paintings in Byzantine temples with their patterns. The Arabs, in this sense, are more lenient and sometimes do not pay special attention to this. And, thank God, today one can admire the magnificent greenish-golden creations of Byzantine masters.
Damascus sprawls at the foot of Mount Qasioun, on the summit of which, according to legend, Eve stood after her son Cain killed her brother Abel. This was the first murder in human history.
Mount Qasioun is a favorite place for city dwellers to relax. Here, a coolness constantly hangs over the city, and a refreshing breeze wanders. From the artificial terraces and platforms, there are beautiful views of the city. But Damascus is especially beautiful in the golden rays of sunset.
What else stood out in Damascus was the covered straight street on both sides of which has buzzed the main Damascus bazaar since time immemorial. The street has been preserved since the first century AD. Now other houses stand on it. But it looks almost the same as it did in the days of the Apostle Paul. The future Apostle Paul was a fierce persecutor of Christians and bore the name Saul.
God blinded him as punishment for his cruelty. The blinded Saul arrived in Damascus. There, Ananias healed him of his blindness. This happened on the Straight Street, in a house where now there is an underground church. Realizing his mistake, Saul took the name Paul and later entered history as one of the most devoted apostles to Christianity and the teachings of Christ.
In the evening, we walked through eastern Damascus, where Christians predominantly live. The peaceful city, adorned with bright lights, donned its night attire, igniting with advertisements for nightclubs, casinos, and bars.
Full of impressions and extremely tired, we reached the hotel. Unpacking my travel diary, I decided to record my last impressions. But there are so many impressions, so much new knowledge and discoveries... And you don’t know where to start.
Syria is one of the most remarkable countries. It touches the depths of the soul. And the whole phenomenon of it is that here coexist two worlds - the ancient, emerging from time, and the modern Arab one, which does not quite fit with the ancient. They merely touch....
Stepping under the arches and domes of ancient structures, you feel the presence of this world, its grandeur and unrealized intellect. This feeling visits you in Palmyra and Apamea, in Boeotia and Latakia... And you feel how you immerse yourself in history, how compressed layers of human civilizations pass through your mind. Four thousand years, three, two... Persians, Greeks, Rome, the history of Byzantium, Arabs, Seljuks, Crusaders, Turks, French... Civilizations that created today's human values. Now all of them are parallel worlds and exist in the present, reminding us of the harsh times of our "yesterday."