Photo Gallery Blocking Out the War
At first glance, life looks as normal as ever in Damascus. In the city center, the only indication that a war is going on is the myriad checkpoints and the posters of the martyrs that hang everywhere. Throngs of people crowd the souk markets in the winding streets of the Old Town.
Elida Sinjar, a 21-year-old economics student in Damascus, hiking with bar-owner Kinan Haddad. "What else can the government do?" Elida asks. "They have to defend Damascus. We have to survive."
Life goes on in the Syrian capital. The cooks in the Old Town grill their famous kebabs, the marble floors of the boutique hotel courtyards are once again heated for winter and pilgrims continue to come from far away to visit the Umayyad Mosque. Stands continue selling lace underwear and bras whose clasps open when you clap your hands.
Even as the Damascus Old Town is largely free of violence, other parts of the city are still at war. Here, a Palestinian fighter peers out at the destruction in Yarmouk, the former Palestinian camp located just four kilometers from the dance floors and bars in the city center.
Young Syrians partying the night away in Z-Bar in the Old Town of Damascus. "People are smoking weed like crazy, they drink and snort cocaine and take Captagon and speed," says bar-owner Kinan.
Visitors to the opulent opera house wear suits and evening gowns while the announcements are made in English, French and Arabic. It's almost as though Damascus were still the cosmopolitan metropolis it once was.
