At Hammam Bakri in Damascus’ Old City, Syrian males wrapped in towels from the waist down lie down on a scalding marble flooring. Masseurs vigorously scrub their pores and skin with a soap-soaked loofah and wash them down with sizzling water.
Around a hexagonal fountain outdoors — historically present in outdated Damascene homes — patrons sip an infusion of herbs and dried flowers generally known as zhourat. The soothing scent fills the air across the domed roof.
After having fallen sufferer to modernization, Syria’s historic public bathhouses, generally known as Hammamat, are selecting up steam once more, largely because of extended electrical energy cuts throughout a very chilly winter on this war-scarred nation.
With hovering gasoline costs and barely sufficient energy to warmth water at house, many are turning to the few remaining Hammams in cities like Damascus, Homs and Aleppo extra to the north.
A waiter makes a natural tea in a public bathhouse in Damascus, Syria. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)
Damascus, together with main Arab cities like Baghdad, Mosul and Cairo, is house to some of the nation’s oldest and finest bathhouses, some of them over a thousand years outdated. Many of them have closed because of modernization, lack of enterprise and the struggle that left a lot of the nation in ruins, crippled the economic system and shrunk wages.
Now, officers at Damascus’ remaining public baths say they’re doing brisk enterprise once more but it surely’s largely because of residents who come for the new water — a luxurious they now not discover at house. Power outages usually run for greater than 20 hours a day in Damascus. Few can afford to have a non-public generator or pay the value of gasoline.
The tough occasions, say homeowners of public bathhouses, are in a approach serving to preserve the tradition alive.
For 10,000 lira ( lower than $3), the shoppers at Hammam Bakri situated throughout the outdated metropolis are given towels, a loofah and a bit of conventional olive oil cleaning soap. They are then scrubbed in a steamy room, usually with Arabic music within the background.
Damascus’ public baths say they’re doing brisk enterprise, and that the tough occasions are serving to preserve the tradition alive. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)
“Having a sizzling bathe could be very completely different than having chilly showers particularly in these temperatures,” stated Husam Hamami, the supervisor. “We at the moment are going by a tough time. There is little electrical energy and the water is little so individuals are not even getting an opportunity to warmth their water so we’re discovering that many individuals are coming in as soon as every week.”
Bakri is one of the oldest bathhouses in Damascus, established in 1069. Instead of vacationers, it’s now residents who come in additional often. On a current day, a bunch of males sauntered in elevated clogs comprised of wooden, generally known as qabqab, as they patted themselves dry with towels, rising from a fog.
“There’s been a great turnout from people who find themselves not vacationers trying to calm down. These individuals are coming to wash,” Hamami stated.
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