Modern megapolis, and ancient civilization, and the largest economy of Africa with Asia and Europe combined together are combined in this city. Past, present and future.

Today, the site - let's dream together, will tell why Cairo is called the "city of the dead", what is the number of population of the most populous city of Africa, as the luxury of the East, it is adjacent to poverty on the outskirts ...

The unusually successful location of Cairo, right in the River Delta, made it possible to become a small village to become the center of the Islamic world, completely in a short period of time.

Trade in spices and spices, ceramics and jewels made it possible to develop the city due to the inconvenient profits, which flowed the river. Mosques and palaces were built in an incredible pace, the welfare of citizens grew.

Cairo turned into the city of "Thousand Minarets". But not so everything is now being right.

Population of Cairo.

The population of the capital of Egypt is more than 20 million and the conditions of lack of housing make many look for new places to stay or at least for rest.

Processing of garbage in Europe and in Cairo

On the outskirts of Cairo for four and a half kilometer, the "City of the Dead" stretched out. The old Arab cemetery turned into a necropolis.

Around the burials, tombs of necropolis, mausoleums and graves are whole families. Almost 500,000 people chose this part of the city to stay.

City of the Dead Cairo - El Araf

Away from the bustle of the capital among the tombstones there are whole generations of Egyptians. Dead and living lives the life of good neighbors.

Locals are called: "The keepers of the graves."

It allows them to earn a cemetery. For cleaning and guarding the graves and digging new, for burials.

For the poor dried, divert the grave worth $ 19, and for wealthy customers up to $ 60. This allows the burialers to contain rather big families. Women are harvesting and cleaning the burial attached to them. Children play and grow there.

Bags with garbage rot under the sun waiting for sorting

An empty tomb serves as a bedroom or a living room whole family. Mausoleum shelters from the heat and the sun, and it is convenient to dry clothes on the tombstience.

On Fridays, it is customary to visit the buried relatives. This is an additional earnings for hairdressers from the city of the Dead. True and shave for Friday prayer - holy.

Earn on the assembly and sorting of garbage the easiest way to live

Among the burials in the morning, milk, fruits and vegetables are sold. The city in the city lives and develops in its slow rhythm.

The authorities made attempts to cross the people of these slums into new houses on the outskirts, but the population is so great that now this decision has become almost impossible to implement.

Cairo - "Diamond Buttons"

He received such an unusual name due to its successful location. The beginning of the River Nile - Delta, made it possible to unite the industry, agriculture and the production of Egypt.

Create uniform trading and transport pathways - the main point. Circuit of the delta and gained the associative name of the "diamond buttons".

Cairo - city of garbers

It is worth moving a little south and get a quarter of the garbers. It is in the area of \u200b\u200bMedina. Earn on the assembly and sorting of garbage the easiest way to live and chance to get extra money. The state in every way encourages residents of missed recycled waste.

Daily Cairo produces more than 15,000 tons of solid waste. Of these, 60% are sorted and 40% remain in landfills and streets.

Children collect and recycle plastic bottles and paper

Children are in a hurry from school home to earn and get on the pocket expenses of garbage sorting.

Special kiosks are installed everywhere with signs, which waste where they accept. After that, the garbage is pressed and sent to the factory for reuse or recycling.

This area is not only a place where garbage sorting, but also just a residential quarter. With your shops, cafes, pharmacies and hairdressers. Like everywhere, people live and work near the house.

And the road from the road is praying the mountains of waste: bags with garbage rot under the sun in anticipation of sorting. Children climbs on them and drove in waste, hoping to find the remains of the fabric or cardboard. Even used diapers can become a source of income: the pieces of wool will go into the case ...

Are you still complaining about your work?

And in the area they fell, people are happy from the opportunity to earn money. I am pleased to be photographed with tourists, children rejoice in candy and presents. Lingerie will be dried over the mountains with garbage, goats live and graze on the roofs (because there is no place anymore) and life goes to her!

Life in contrasts Contrary to everything ...

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This is not just the name of the cemetery. Here really live, among the crypts -

so it was probably not from a good life

Cemetery Capital, extensive, really whole city.

Going to garbers, from, the city of the dead is not passing.

We were not allowed into the territory, the accompanying allowed only to slow down, through the fence to look at the cemetery architecture.
They explained to not disturb the peace of the inhabitants.
I did not even rush, and the friends on the journey tried to get to get, but did not ride.

Note on accompaniment -

All tourists are supposed to take "aboard" accompanying. In addition to the fact that the police car followed relentlessly.
"Tours" in civilian house (with a short-barreled vehicle under the hollow), we called "jackets" - the poor fellows were bathed in a dense costume, taught us on the pyramids, slums, sands and deserts, despite the fact that the Egyptian sun even in September still fries all.
As for me, so with an escort calmer, although - do not go there, it is impossible to coordinate every step with instances - it was also a matter. What a lot degrees our warm company, I will grow on the feats)
The guide is local, Caieien - for some reason began to assure that the security forces are not for the protection, and they look after us, so as not to climb wherever it should not. What such forbidden can be peered among the devastation, the god of the news. But some way or other, local beggars and other passes were held by the party, the police respect. In one of the hotels, we were attended to throw - the jacket ruined, he is also more interesting to sleep in the room, and not to graze the unconscious group. We were treated normally to us, if something was suggested, through the guide, they did not command in conversations, "Building" did not command \u003d) by the way - unlike people on the streets (also calm-friendly friends) "jackets" knew What we are Israelis.

The place of residence is peculiar, of course.

Backway pictures.

The topic about the horrors of the district of garbage processors is already far beyond his faces,
city Center Consider, Bridge over Neal

Under the bridge - a bus station with a street bazair -

Buses are crowded, minibuses - the capital, as - in no way

From the desert, dust constantly inflicts the wind - because all the wet. And the papers under the legs apparently do not hide anyone.

The buildings are completely different from the housing of the Babalins -

Somewhere more neat, somewhere completely fear and-horror -

This, of course, anywhere can be found if aimed in the goal, at least in Tel Aviv, at least in Rostov, even Europe is not all with a needle,
but I did not strive in the lumps, I removed everything in a row, in the course of the route

The authorities do that they can, with the roads at least

Streets are not bad, the highway is more or less. The broken road came out only at all in the desert wildlings, in the distant siva

Tuk-Tuki on the basis of scooters - a very common type of transport

Advertising turned up - oil products from Libya advertise. Egypt has its own. And there is nothing special to trade. Hence the cutters in the economy.
In Jordan, the same picture. Tourism - almost the only export article.
When provocative publishers compare - "Here, de, like the Arabs in the territories live! And as the Israelis!" - forget to compare with the rest of Middle East,
who prevents them from the srach to clean on the streets? If he does not interfere with anyone, except for the europeanism.

Beauty Center, not cham-balls

The house is not yet completely in the foot of the wind begins. The winds are certainly strong ..
And what I liked - this is a niche for kondeyev so that the facade does not spoil.

Skinny rams or dogs? With the go and you will not say

Maybe when they want

Cairo Museum

It is located in the very center of the city - a solid building, in which 120 thousand exhibits are sleeping and see. Museums are generally phenomenon. For some reason, the tombs are considered terrible and mysterious, but museums in which all the same thing is stored, only in quantities of much large, hear the abode of boredom. Meanwhile, their corridors roam disembodied shadows and miraculously seemed. How many times the author of these lines, wandering alone by an imfilads of cusk or fontaineblery, noticed the movement in the corner of the eye or restrained laughs.

In the Cairo Museum, quite a lot of visitors are minus. Halls in it there is a lot there is the opportunity to get lost - this is a plus. The most popular part of the museum belongs to the mummy and the gold mask of Tutankhamon. The most interesting - family of Ehnaton and Nefertiti.

The upper floors store small objects (Fayum portraits, dishes and utensils). It is relatively calm, and only the most sensitive researchers are incomprehensible can hear the whispers and rustles here. Much more active in the invisible life on the first floor, in the right gallery (if you look from the entrance). There you will be waiting for the accumulation of figures - from human growth and higher, above ... The giants are surrounding the visitor from all sides. Nothing threatening, you feel moderate interest and should behave decently.

An ordinary tourist flies this corridor rapidly, justifying himself by the fact that it was tired that for two hours he walked over the museum without the case that he would like to drink and eat (inside the museum they do not feed). Knowing a sense in miracles, freezes in the corridor of Megaliths for a long time. There are lonely giants here, there are couples and even the troika - the ruler, his wife and his right hand, friend and adviser. In reflections, how high should the relationship in such unions should pass. You look at them, they are on you.

Copt Quarter

This is a strange place in which the repair is always underway. Consists of a luxurious museum, the Parade Church of the Virgin Mary (al-Malalyak),

church Sv. Sergia

and the streets of Old Cairo, located significantly below the level of asphalt.

Going along the steps, do you immerse yourself deep into time - or deep into yourself? Feeling contradictory. Around hundreds of prayer, pilgrims. Christians in Egypt are not so little, and they all come to pray here, to the area of \u200b\u200bBabylon.

The fact is that Cocks are Christians forgotten in the Muslim country. They did not decide the split churches, were forever persecuted and despised, left behind the naive art - dancing men with big eyes. Their icons are written as if idle, but the more you look at them, the deeper you understand the Coptic style "We will be like children."

There is a synagogue on the territory of the Copt Quarter. Copts are kind, they accept everyone who is bad. And during certain hours you can go down to the cave, where the holy family was supposedly hidden during the flight from Egypt, and then several devotees lived in it, eyelids. I do not know how about the family, but the dungeon is very nasty. Going into it, feel a special kind of excitement and delight.

All these places are described in detail in guidebooks, but at the end of the labyrinth of Old Cairo there is one inconspicuous church in which happiness lives. It is difficult to describe the words "grace" church concept. Scientists would say something about the cleavage of trace elements and their ingress of them in some centers of pleasure. Cult workers would be erected to the sky. It was enough for me that in the church of this bird sang.

You go into a small, not too well-maintained church of Sv.v.V. For some reason, you sit down - there are benches in Coptic churches, as in Catholic temples. You are sitting for two minutes and you understand that large tears roll out of your eyes. What you are so light and sorry for everyone that you as an egoistic unit is not at all. And it is necessary for all this storm feelings that invisible spars sing. They nest over the arch, high under the roof. They do not chase them. They understand that it is their dynamic that creates an unprecedented psychedelic effect.

If we talk about paranormal phenomena, officially fixed, then they are enough in the Coptic diaspora. In the church, Sergius over the described cave, the cross. Twenty years ago, night radiance was recorded without a light source in the temple of St. MCH. Damiana in the Cairo district of Schubra. The most famous miracle was in Zeitun on the outskirts of Cairo: there was repeatedly God's Mother, large, with the crowd of the people, on the roof of the Coptic Church. Miragei happened during the whole of 1968, and even if it was someone's scaldings (to push the fog and design a filmmaker on him), he was not with evil, but for good. Because to support the superstitious people can only be miracle.

City of dead

The cemetery, which lives very volatile people.

Giant Necropolis El Khalifa, partly populated - so the government solved the housing problem. The cemetery for rich in Egyptian consists of a pleasant little manadess: a four-room house, a small garden, even some architectural excesses are present. Most of the houses have a host, an ancestor of buried. But the owner is reluctant to ride in necropolis every week, follow the kindergarten, look dust in the house. Therefore, it permits to settle in the house-grave to a certain hardworking family, which will have honors to what remained from their famous in the past relative, and the house will not give up. Others even pay out for the settlers for the works.

The inhabitants of the city of the dead live at the expense of tourism. For the entrance to the house and inspection, the graves take from the dollar and above from the nose. During the day around the city, there are several hundred curious - the children are spoiled by imported handles, adults are called at home. In El Halifa, there is everything: mosques, shops, tea, cafes, tire-alignment-disorder. There are quiet and wild places of launch, where you want to wander the bayronically. Only the local themselves do not advise. It is said that these are European nonsense, in fact, there is terribly, the hungry perfumes and the rings of beggars.

Tatyana Arefieva.Published: Magic Cosmo January 2006.

In Egypt, under the mountain Mukattam, north of the Citadel, there is Cairo Necropolis - the city of the Dead. Cairo is the capital of the state consisting of a variety of areas, one of which is the extended cemetery. The age of the burial ground exceeds two millennia, and the territory is constantly increasing. Now its length is more than 6 kilometers.

City of the Dead (Cairo)

Egypt is considered to be a Muslim country, only 15% of residents profess Christianity, so the city of the Dead is Islamic necropolis. Hearing this name, many think that we are talking about the great pyramids located in Giza nearby from Cairo. But in fact, the so-called the largest cemetery, located in the capital of Egypt. By the way, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But despite such status, necropolis is not popular among tourists and locals.

The city of the Dead (Cairo), whose name Al Qarafa, translated from the Arabic language means "Cemetery". It consists of five major cemeteries - northern, southern, Bab El Nasr, Bab El Vazir and the Great.

In memory of those who have gone

In the northern part of the al-karafa, the Mausoleums and the sultan mosques of Inalla and Kaitbey, Faradja Barcuck, the complex of Barsbey. In the southern part of Maamars Mamelukov and the ancient buildings of the weather of the Fatimids were built.

Some tombs are already destroyed, while others are intact, as they are built from marble. As in life, buried in large tombs, and at ordinary mortals, modest tombstones.

The city of the Dead (Cairo) in their age belongs to the ancient mass places of burials. People from different layers of society found peace on its territory - both ordinary citizens and representatives of blue blood. Many tourists are impressive by majestic tomb of the rulers of the world who lived a few centuries ago, as well as how their relatives honored the memory of their departed family members.

Initially, this cemetery was erected as a place for the burial of the Arab conquerors of Egypt, Abbasides, Fatimides, Mamilukov, Ottomans, and now turned into one of Cairo slums, where live and dead coexist in the neighborhood.

Alive and dead

Nowadays, this unusual metropolitan area is not only the last refuge for those who have left in a different world, but also the place of residence of tens of thousands of the poorest Caers, who have no other roof above their heads. The cause of this was the Egyptian crisis, the lack of affordable housing for the fast-growing population. Therefore, many poor Egyptians chose the city of the Dead as their home.

Some of them, as agreed with the deceased relatives, live directly in the scleps. As a rule, in return, they undertake to look after the graves and make order on the adjacent territory. Thanks to such an agreement, the city of Dead (Cairo) is much cleaner than some of the main streets of the capital.

Here you can often find boys playing football, and women hanging lingerie between tombstones. For many of them, the city of the dead for a long time became a real house. Life here is different from the one that boils in other regions of Cairo. Streets here are quiet, narrow, not asphalted. It seems that at high walls with decorative gates is a completely different world: a circle of solid domes, minarets and no politics.

al Qarafa: Kings and Poor

"I live here for 80 years, and my family lived at this place is 350 years old. The king of Faruk is buried next to my house, "said the local resident of the city of Dead in 2011. Despite such a strange neighborhood, he believed that "Life with Dead is a good thing for an old man." Indeed, it is much worse than those who are alive, which you do not know what to expect.

Nevertheless, since the 60s of the last century, a certain similarity of infrastructure appeared here: shops opened in which products, clothing and souvenirs can be purchased, even built at home. Vehicles walk here, people work here.

No one can answer the question with accuracy, how many people live in this gloomy quarter among millions of graves. Today, the population of the district "City of the Dead" (Cairo) continues to grow due to the migration of villagers, natural disasters and housing crisis. Presumably, we are talking about a half-million settlement.

City of the Dead (Cairo): Tourist reviews

Tourists who visit the city of the Dead, as a rule, are discouraged. For many of them, it is strange to see the city with houses where the mummified bodies of relatives of homeowners are stored. In their opinion, this is not a spectacle for nervous. Despite the fact that there are low-income people live here, for most tourists it is difficult to understand how you can stay in the house with a tomb in another room to save on costs.

Others, on the contrary, consider walking around the city of the dead very exciting. For them, it is unusual that living people are constantly among the tombs, and they gladly respond to the offer of local residents to go to their homes.

And yet it is beautiful

But not all guests of the capital pay attention to such moments. Many of them attend the city of the Dead (Cairo) in order to admire the most beautiful tombs of the Arab rulers, for example, on Mohammed Ali Mausoleum. The wonderful creations of the masters of the past who created manually majestic structures, do not leave indifferent true connoisseurs of architecture.

For some, this unusual place remained in mind as a stretched cemetery, in whose territory the poorest residents of Cairo inhabit. They do not advise visit the maze of tombs, houses and the famous necropolis, as it is easy to get lost without a guide and you can become a victim of robbers and other criminals.

Nevertheless, having arrived in Egypt, visit the city of the Dead (Cairo), whose photo does not give a complete idea of \u200b\u200bthe true beauty of this area. Once on his streets, you will feel yourself a character "Thousands and One Night."

Caera Caemeter or the "City of the Dead", the most interesting place of the Old Town. There has been a huge number of monuments of the Mamluk period of the history of Egypt. And despite this, the city of the Dead rarely visit tourists. There are many fears and phobias associated with these place, here are the ubiquitous beggars, and the bums living in the graves, and in general the fear of any necropolia. Cairo's cemeteries are really populated by people, and this is poorly stacked in the head of the tourist from the civilized world. I decided to dispel these myths for myself and killed the "City of the Dead" all day, it turned out that during this time you can only quickly inspect the main attractions, much and remained behind the "board" ...

Cairo Cemeteries enhance the old Islamic city on the east side, interrupting the hill of the citadel, which divides the "City of the Dead" to the North and Southern parts. They are called the Northern Cemetery and, respectively, southern. You can get there by taxi, I came to the Northern Cemetery on foot from Hussein's Square, the distance there somewhere Polkilometer.

Previously, Mamluk mausoleums stood freely behind the fortress wall, now they are clamped from all sides by residential arrays, and turned out to be almost in the city center. On old photos and pictures of the 19th century it is clearly visible.

The cemeteries became actively in the 60s of the last century, refugees from the area of \u200b\u200bthe Suez Canal were treated. At first, there were problems with infrastructure - there were a lot of people, but apparently, the government coped with it. Now, in my subjective opinion, the cemeteries are populated at best by half, the streets during the day are absolutely deserted, if adults can still leave for earnings, then children must run in huge quantities - but nothing noticeable is noticeable.

This is a quiet calm area similar to our summer cottages. There are shops, walk buses, fences and houses for Egypt are very good - a lot of reproductions can be seen, there is a modern building. In the southern cemetery, things are somewhat worse, but still it seems to me that it is better to live here than in handicraft high-rise buildings on the outskirts that are still a little and cut into the heads of the inhabitants.

Of course, the idea that people allegedly stuck in the cemeteries to live in the crypts is incorrectly initially. Here were the wasteland, which were subsequently mastered by the local population. It seems that the people of 1967 came here at first, built at home, and then filled cemeteries - mortality in Egypt is very big, otherwise I can not explain such a density of burials, because on old photos of mausoleums are absolutely free.

You can start the inspection of the "cities" from anywhere, but for a start it is worth estimating the area from some elevation and lay an approximate route - to navigate "on Earth" very hard, even having a map. The bulk of the monuments of the northern cemetery is stretched from the north to south through the line passing through the center. The mausoleum of the Southern Cemeteries is grouped mostly in the north, near the Citadel

The most significant monuments of the Northern Cemetery - Mosque, Khanaka and Mausoleum Sultan Inala, Mosque and Mausoleum of Faradja Barcuca, the complex of Barsbey and the complex of Sultan Kaitbay, and numerous mausoleum scattered throughout the "Dead City" area.

The complex of Sultan Inalla, built on 1451-1456 in the very north of the cemetery. It consists of the ruins of the mosque, madrasa, Sufi Khanaki, in fact, this is a whole Islamic monastery.

Sultan Al-Inal, being a purebred Circassian Mamluk, until the end of his days did not master the Arabic language - did not know how to read or write. He enjoyed only his Caucasian adverb, but set up a lot of religious structures, thus showing his zeal in Islam.

It is adjacent to the funeral complex of Emir Kurkums (1506), who headed the Mamluk military at Sultan Kaitbee.

Together, two complexes are a huge archaeological zone.

Emir Kurkumsa complex and Sultan Inalla (the picture of the Devid Roberts - the beginning of the 19th century)

When inspected, I helped me, but most likely interfered, a young man in a shirt and trousers, an energetic and clear army. He opened the door to the inner premises, regulates my stay at the facility, such as it is impossible - and there it is possible, and constantly climbed into the lens, take a picture without it very difficult. There are a lot of such young people in the same shirts in the "city of the Dead". Of course it impresses me that the Government of Egypt is worried about my security, but without them it would be much more convenient. If, without accustomed at all, it is impossible to do, then I personally like the ministers of the cult, they are more relaxed and meditative, and are less interested in the course of events.

The big mosque and the Mausoleum of Farage Ibn Barcuck (1400-1411) was built by the son of the founder of the Corporation "Tower" Burdy Mamlukov for his father.

It is known for the fact that he could easily get rid of the troops of the Great Tamerlan, giving him Allepo and Damascus. Mamli applied the tactics of the burned land, and to Cairo "Iron Chromeman" did not reach.

The complex of Sultan Barsbey (1433) consists of several mausoleums and mosque. Mamluk Al-Ashraf Barcaye is known as the conqueror of Cyprus, with it Egypt had a very significant Mediterranean military fleet.

Sultan Kaitbeya complex (1472-1474) consists of a huge number of structures - mausoleums, hospitals and mosques.

True, I was not allowed at the main mosque because of Namaz, I had to restrict ourselves to the photographing of the outer door, it was worth it.

Mausoleum "River" Bakhry Mamlukov - an earlier era.
Mausoleum's mind Anuk Princess Tughai (1348) - the beloved wife of Sultan An-Nasira Muhammad, glorified by extensive construction in Cairo - the construction of a mosque in the citadel and the construction of a large aquicker.

Mausoleum As-Saab Banat (15th Century) Mamluki Burji

Mausoleum Al-Rifai (16th century), Mamli Burji

Yunus al-Davadar (1382) is one of the earliest "Circassian" mausoleums, Al-Davadar was manageing at Sultan Barcuck, he died in a battle - in Syria, and was not buried in his mausoleum.

Starting from the citadel and the south of the age of monuments increases, which once again proves that the historic center of the city is shifted to the south, towards Fustat and Antique Babylon, where the Coptsky Quarter is now. The South Cemetery is dominated by the Mausoleums of "River" Bakhry Mamlukov and even the construction of the Fatimides times.

Southern Cemetery (David Roberts - Painting of the early 19th century)

Southern Cemetery End 19 Start 20th century.

Small Mausoleum Rajab Al-Shirazi (1379 year), squeezed between houses, is at the foot of the citadel. Perhaps this is the last representative of the "River" Mamlukov.

Southern Cemetery

Mausoleum, Minaret and Khanaka of the Al-Sultania complex (1350-1360), Mamli "Bakhry" - on the southern cemetery. It is made in Persian style, and the mother of Sultan Hasan, which built the biggest mosque in the city.

P.S. Of course, I wanted to create a positive image of cemetery and Cairo in general, although, of course, I must admit, I have a lot of photos that I did not spread in order not to disturb the "harmony". About the mountains of garbage, flock of stray dogs, omnipresenting dirt and dust and so everyone knows. I just want to focus on the constant presence of Cairo dust, this substance makes it very much difficult to photograph, there is much more in cemeteries than in urban quarters, and it is much smallest sand in the desert. By the end of the day, I had a chamber there, I decided that she came Kayuk, even thought about all sorts of superstitions related to the "city of the dead" - after all, millions of the dead here, and I really looked at their graves ... But after 30 minutes she was progressing and came to life, Allah merciful .. or take care of the technique, well, too ...

Cairo is a fabulous city "Thousand and One Night", in which I always want to go back ...