It seemed to them such an obvious and elegant solution.
For years, the Islamic architecture aficionada Shahira Mehrez and a group of friends had been walking the back lanes and alleyways of Cairo’s historic Islamic neighbourhoods, seeking out its riches yet dismayed as they watched historic building after building being torn down to make way for ugly modern apartments.
They decided do a tiny part to save at least a tiny fraction of the heritage of one of the world’s great historical cities. A dozen or so friends pooled their resources and bought two 19th- century mansions on the main street of the 1,000-year-old city, thinking they might transform them into boutique hotels.
Cairo is odd in that unlike other great Islamic heritage cities such as Istanbul, Damascus, Aleppo, Zanzibar’s Old Town, Fez or Marrakech, almost none of its historic buildings have been made into hotels, even though there are hundreds of potential candidates.
Anyone creating a business in Cairo faces arduous hurdles: signatures from countless government agencies such as the investment authority, tax, labour, social security and health authorities, permissions to form the company and others to operate it, registrations with the district government.
Those who would open a boutique hotel face an entirely new layer of bureaucracy.
If your building is listed as a “heritage” building, then it falls under the charge of the ministry of culture, says Ahmed Mansour, who worked as a consultant to Unesco’s historic Cairo project until November 2014. If you have leased a structure listed as a “monument”, then it is probably owned by the ministry of religious endowments but falls under the jurisdiction of the ministry of antiquities.
Ms Mehrez’s group also has other problems. One of the buildings it owns is a small mansion on historic Cairo’s main street, south of Bab Al Zuwaila, just beyond the recently restored Taz Palace. The gorgeous yet severely dilapidated mansion, built in the 18th century but with a facade probably from about 1870, has enough space for about 12 guest rooms, some overlooking a tiny courtyard, others peeking out on the main street or a back street.
Ms Mehrez reckons it would take about $130,000 to $200,000 to renovate the building into a boutique hotel. But because one tenant claims a lease on a storeroom in the house, which is legally invalid because it was signed by his grandfather, her group is unable to register the title, even though the law gives it complete control. As a result, no bank would consider providing a mortgage for its renovation.
The group’s second property, about 500 metres further south, is a much larger mansion from about 1860 called the Sakna Bey house. Here they face a slightly different problem. When they bought the building years ago, one tenant was occupying a storeroom without a lease. Both this and the case of the smaller house have languished in legal proceedings for years, according to Ms Mehrez.
Her group also rented two apartments just outside Bab Al Zuwaila from the ministry of religious endowments that it hopes to renovate then rent out to artists or writers. These are registered as historic monuments, which adds a whole new layer of complications and restrictions.
Plumbing and electricity cannot be buried in the walls, nor can objects as essential as fire detectors be attached to the walls, nor can air conditioning be added, since these were not integral to the historic structure when it was built. The law restricts earning money from the monument.
About the only two recognised uses of monuments are for religious or cultural purposes, says Ms Mansour. As a result, sabils, hammams and other buildings are often quickly closed after they have been restored. Of 81 monuments around Cairo’s Citadel, only 38 are now in use.
Something needs to be done quickly to bring life and money to Cairo’s historic district, before what is left of its heritage is destroyed or allowed to rot.
One solution might be for the government to create a special task force to choose a handful of boutique hotel candidates yearly and fast-track them through the regulatory process and into operation. The hotels could be given tax incentives and subsidised loans.
Once a few hotels have proved themselves successful, other entrepreneurs would soon try to copy the idea. And who knows? Once tourism in Egypt regains its strength, a trickle of boutique hotels might turn into a flood, bringing a major economic boom to the often impoverished residents of Cairo’s most heritage-rich neighbourhoods.
In addition to employing local residents, the hotels could be a catalyst for other residents to cater to the guests, whether through sales of soft drinks and locally made crafts such as cotton fabrics or jars.
The local residents would be likely to keep their neighbourhoods cleaner, because it is in their economic interest. And the presence of tourists would also force the government to improve its garbage collection.
“We want people who will sit in the cafes, buy a coffee, buy the vegetables, walk along the streets, to get foreigners and tourists acquainted with Egypt,” Ms Mehrez says.
Patrick Werr has worked as a financial writer in Egypt for 25 years.
business@thenational.ae
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The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
Price, base / as tested: Dh182,178
Engine: 3.7-litre V6
Power: 350hp @ 7,400rpm
Torque: 374Nm @ 5,200rpm
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 10.5L / 100km
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MO
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
PSL FINAL
Multan Sultans v Peshawar Zalmi
8pm, Thursday
Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
At a glance
- 20,000 new jobs for Emiratis over three years
- Dh300 million set aside to train 18,000 jobseekers in new skills
- Managerial jobs in government restricted to Emiratis
- Emiratis to get priority for 160 types of job in private sector
- Portion of VAT revenues will fund more graduate programmes
- 8,000 Emirati graduates to do 6-12 month replacements in public or private sector on a Dh10,000 monthly wage - 40 per cent of which will be paid by government
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Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
