African Postman: The Struggles and the Dust of Cairo

Cairo, the capital city of Egypt, was until recently the most populous city in Africa.  At least, it still may be – it rather depends on how you define the city limits (Lagos may be first or a close second in terms of population).  Close to seven million live in the city of Cairo itself; with a further ten million in the surrounding metropolitan area.  This huge, sprawling, complex city of 175 square miles is over one thousand years old.  The ancient cities of Memphis and Giza, the Great Sphinx and the Pyramids are nearby.  It is densely populated, polluted and the traffic is a nightmare.  And by the way, Cairo has a metro (underground railway) – the only one in Africa.

The minarets of old Cairo

Cairo, Egypt (with pollution haze…)

And this great city is in the news almost every day, as Egypt has struggled (since January 25, 2011, when thousands protested against President Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square) towards a people’s revolution, the “Arab Spring.”  Now, the second round of presidential elections approaches.  There are still many political and social problems – present and future – and the atmosphere remains stormy, unstable, unpredictable.  The convicted Mubarak is in his sick bed, his face pasty, eyes dark.  And Cairo moves on into its future, a momentous city.  It’s a multi-cultural mixture of the ancient and modern, the intensity of the present, the towering immensity of the ancient past – and half-forgotten memories of more gracious times.  A city you can’t ignore.

Photographer Xenia Nikolskaya, born in St. Petersburg, was drawn to the last era – a period roughly between 1860 and 1940, when many lavish buildings were erected, plucking design and architectural inspiration from a range of influences.  Many now are empty and neglected; there is no legislation to preserve these mansions; but the Radio Cinema in downtown Cairo, which she photographed, has I believe been refurbished recently.  Ms. Nikolskaya completed her work (she photographed approximately thirty locations in Cairo and other cities) just weeks before the January 2011 revolution.

Russian photographer Xenia Nikolskaya

Here is an excerpt from the photographer’s website, in which she describes her awareness of, and attraction to the concept of “absence” – the empty spaces that people have departed from – and some examples of her haunting photographs, chronicling the dust of Cairo.

Egyptian Dust: The Social Life of Endangered Spaces

We took the back door and stepped into complete darkness. For a moment I felt scared, and my heart was beating in my ears. But when the doorman switched on the light we saw a magical place. We had come to the palace of Sleeping Beauty. There was a wonderful hall paved with marble from the beginning of the last century, totally untouched, covered with a soft layer of dust.

The house looked like it was still occupied, or as if the owners had left in a rush. Books and photos were simply scattered around. A pink marble staircase decorated with griffons connected the hall to the second floor, where you come to the library and a salon on the left and the dining-room on the right. The hall is covered by a glass ceiling. The marble and silk, polished wood and crystal, mirrors and paintings seams to transform the place into a theater in which a drama just took place, but a private drama, the one that fills you with curiosity and shame, like reading someone’s letters.

It now seems appropriate that my photographic exploration of empty space in Egypt started when I stepped into this building, the Sarajeldin mansion in Cairo. Subsequently, I have entered many abandoned places, halls of decay and vanishing beauty. Initially, I was looking in these places for traces of the St-Petersburg of my early adulthood. Gradually, however, I found myself drawn by their own stories.

I was born in the Soviet Union (a name which, like my hometown, Leningrad, no longer exists), and studied Ancient Egyptian art on broken B&W slides from a teacher who has never been to Egypt. The first time I came to Egypt in 2003 was as a part of an archeological mission in Memphis run by The Russian Egyptology Institute in Cairo. This first trip was overwhelming. I was too busy taking photos of artifacts and excavations to see much of the country, (believe me, the life of archeologist is nothing like an Indiana Jones movie), but I felt something nevertheless. I returned to the country, on my own, in 2006, with the help of the Egyptian Embassy in Moscow for an adventurous second trip. As Roland Barthes put it “there is no photography without adventure”. After returning to Russia from this trip the director of the Egyptian Cultural Centre in Moscow, a very nice gentlemen, invited me to exhibit my work. But at his office, going over my pictures, he became more and more upset. Finally he asked:  “Where are the Pyramids?” I said: “I don’t find them very interesting. I never took a single good picture of them”. This was the end of the meeting. He never called me back.

Poster for the photographic exhibition “Dust”

I have been constantly photographing in Egypt for the last four years, but only when leaving the country did I manage to formulate my vision for this project. This happened during a trip to the USA, in fall 2009, as a Fulbright scholar. In New York, I met Jason Eskenazi, photographer who was working at the Metropolitan Museum as a security guard. Jason took me to the Met on Monday, when the museum is closed to visitors. The deserted Met projected me back to late-evening childhood visits to the Hermitage Museum with my school club. That day the Met revealed to me something I have seen before but at the same time encountered for the first time: The Milkmaid, the famous painting by Jan Vermeer. During visiting hours it was simply impossible to even come close to her. The milkmaid is alone in the picture (in a closed museum she is even more alone), but we know that someone had just left. No, she doesn’t look sad. But a shooting Cupid on a square tile of fine Dutch ceramic completes the story: she was with a lover. At that moment I realized that absence could stand out as a theme. That it has been my theme all along.

…So when I finally stepped out of the Sarajeldin mansion in to the present darkness did time begin again.  And only later did I discover the stories beneath the dust…”

[By the way, Cairo has inspired one of my favorite films of recent years, “Cairo Time” – a gentle and understated romance set in and around the city; and one of my favorite novels, “The Yacoubian Building.”  And if you are craving musical inspiration, I would highly recommend “Egypt,” by Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, backed by a rhythmic, flowing Egyptian orchestra – but there is much more richness to explore.  Please see my review of the novel at the link below and in my book reviews on the blog’s tab, above].

 

 

• Whither Cairo’s Historic Books Market? (arablit.wordpress.com)
• https://petchary.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/egypt-now/: Petchary blog post dated January 29, 2011
• https://petchary.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/freedom-time/: Petchary blog post dated February 12, 2011
• https://petchary.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/egypt/: Petchary blog post on Egyptian culture dated September 4, 2010
• https://petchary.wordpress.com/book-review/the-yacoubian-building-by-alaa-al-aswany/: Petchary review of “The Yacoubian Building” by Alaa Al Aswany
• Pyramids and 22-million people – Cairo, Egypt (travelpod.com)
• http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1101/entertain.htm: Dust…and its white silence (Al-Ahram Weekly)
• http://www.xenianikolskaya.com/Xenia_Nikolskaya/home.html: Xenia Nikolskaya’s home page
• http://www.cairo360.com/article/artsandculture/3830/townhouse-gallery-dust-by-xenia-nikolskaya/: Cairo 360.com
• http://nikolskaya.wordpress.com/: Nikolskaya’s weblog
• http://www.lonelyplanet.com/egypt/cairo: Lonely Planet.com
• http://www.cairo.com/: Cairo.com tourism pages
• Tension mounts ahead of Egypt’s presidential election – euronews (euronews.com)

A grand, decaying mansion: photograph from Nikolskaya’s exhibit

Xenia Nikolskaya: “Dust” – faded blue.