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Watch out Messi, here come the footballers at31 RoboCup MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017 A picture taken yesterday shows a graffiti by street artist “Axe Colors” portraying British actor Kit Harington known for playing Jon Snow in The Game of Thrones TV series in Barcelona. — AFP photos Street Artists A woman walks in A dog walks in front a graffiti by front a graffiti street artist portraying US “Axe Colours” actor Norman portraying British Reedus known for actress Maisie playing Daryl Williams known for Dixon in The playing Arya Stark Walking Dead in The Game of TV series. Thrones TV series. A graffiti by street artist “Axe Colors” portraying British actress Emilia Clarke A picture shows a graffiti by street artist ‘Axe Colors’ portraying US actor Bryan A graffiti portraying British actor Andrew Lincoln often known for playing Rick known for playing Daenerys Targaryen in The Game of Thrones TV series. Cranston often known for playing Walter White in The Breaking Bad TV series. Grimes in The Walking Dead TV series. At historic Aleppo hotel, nostalgia for a Syria lost Baron Hotel is a historic landmark in Aleppo n the terrace of the Baron Hotel in thing that allowed it to thrive. During most of despise diversity and criminal gangs who loot militias backed by Iran. They played a big part disrepair in a city with little electricity or water. Aleppo, the owner’s widow, Roubina the fighting, Aleppo’s government-held west- cultural treasures. Assad has cast his state as a in the campaign to retake eastern Aleppo. In Her husband, Armen Mazloumian, the grand- OTashjian, sorted through old photo- ern districts were subjected to shellfire, an secular protector of Syria’s minorities and cul- the city, the conflict’s socio-economic dimen- son of the hotel’s founder, died in 2016, two graphs of its happier past in a more peaceful influx of refugees and shortages of water, elec- tural heritage against Sunni rebels backed by sions are readily apparent. Areas where the years after they married following a 30-year Syria. Founded by an Armenian family in 1911, tricity and food. East Aleppo, held by rebels hostile foreign states whose ranks include rebellion was strongest included places friendship. The Baron now belongs to his sisters, the Baron played host to adventurers, writers, until December when the army swept through many hardliners. It was a view shared by some bypassed by economic growth and poor quar- who left Syria years earlier, she said. On the ter- kings, aviators, Bedouin chiefs and presidents it after months of siege and air raids, was left all of the audience at a concert in an Old City ters to which rural people flocked. race from which Egypt’s nationalist leader until war forced it to close five years ago. but a wasteland. church, fluttering fans in the summer heat of One west Aleppo resident, who had driven Gamal Abdel Nasser once addressed a huge Tashjian sees the Baron as part of a Syria that The Baron, in west Aleppo near the front the open basilica, its roof ruined by shelling, as through devastated eastern districts after the crowd, the boxes of old photographs were sur- values religious and ethnic diversity, openness line, was hit by mortar bombs, including one they listened to Mozart’s Mass in C Minor. fighting ended, said the inhabitants had rounded by other detritus recently hauled from to the outside world, culture and respect for that sprayed shrapnel across an upper floor But any characterisation of Assad’s Syria as brought ruin upon themselves by consorting a basement after the fighting abated. the country’s great antiquities. “A Syrian is a and another that crashed through the window diverse, secular, open and tolerant is rejected with rebels. “Those people were the cause. Yes, Kilims, antique sewing machines, a set of mixture of all these ethnic groups and cultures of its “Oriental Room” onto delicate floor tiles by the opposition, as well as some Western it’s sad, but...” the person said. 1950s towels, and moldering linen imported ... this is a big pot and it’s all mixed up. But we but failed to explode. The tail fin from that countries and rights groups. Critics say Syria’s from Europe and embroidered with the hotel’s cook the same kibbeh,” she said, referring to a round now sits in the Baron’s cabinet of government has long been one of the most Refugee families name, cascaded from large rattan trunks. During Levantine dish. curiosities alongside such relics as pottery giv- oppressive in the Middle East and this was a In the Baron, the wood-paneled dining the fighting, the hotel took in refugee families Trying to revive that vision of Syria amid a en by visiting archaeologists and T.E. root cause of the war. The privileged position room, the bar stocked with antique bottles, the from east Aleppo. While they were there they war that has aggravated social fractures would Lawrence’s hotel bill. In the upstairs room she of Assad’s Alawite sect under him and his pink furniture of the high-ceilinged smoking used so much water cleaning the floors of their involve reconciliation between political oppo- always took during her frequent stays in father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, fed room and the bedrooms all seem worn and rooms each morning that the elegant geometric nents, religious sects and economic classes. Aleppo stands the glass-topped wooden desk grievances among many in the Sunni Muslim tired. It stopped taking paying guests in 2012 - tiles were damaged, Tashjian said. In the late But with hundreds of thousands dead, more where Agatha Christie wrote part of Murder majority even as other Sunnis including urban bar a few old friends - when Syria’s civil war afternoon heat, the hotel is cooled by a breeze than half the country’s pre-war population dis- on the Orient Express. elites backed the government. came to Aleppo and mortars and sniper fire that drifts in through broken windows on the placed and fighting ongoing, there seems little While the government has promoted the began to plague the streets around. Tashjian, a ground floor and up the grand staircase. “Syria hope of that for now. For the Baron, whose Secular or sectarian? idea of a secular Syria throughout the war, the 66-year-old former teacher, chases away street was the most comfortable, the most secular business depended on stability, safety and the For supporters of President Bashar al-Assad conflict’s sectarian edge has been hard to miss. kittens that creep through broken French win- country in the Arab world,” said Tashjian. “It was draw of Syria’s cultural treasures, the 2011 it is the fault of rebels they describe as terror- As rebels rallied around Sunni Islamist slogans, dows into the dining room and tries to keep the embarrassing if people asked if you were a uprising was a catastrophic assault on every- ists, viewing them as Islamist militants who Assad drew on allies including Shi’ite Islamist mostly deserted hotel from falling further into Christian or a Muslim.”— Reuters.

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