Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of Syria Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on May 15, 2018, and transitioned some of our coverage to Peacebuilding Deeply, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on the Syrian conflict. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
Exploring the Syrian war through the country’s arts and culture scene.
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‘I realize that we can’t get married. You’re Sunni and I’m Alawite. You’re with the opposition and I’m with the regime, but I promise you that I will never give you up, no matter what.’.
Mohammad Dibo / Syria Untold
At a time when the Syrian regime’s air force conducts daily raids on the city of Saraqeb and uses barrel bombs to bring death and destruction, activists in the city eagerly wait for nightfall to continue their four-month-old mission of painting portraits on the city walls.
A Syrian NGO helps women make Syria a colorful place to live, most recently with an initiative to paint the walls of a cemetery in the town of Nabek.
A Syrian refugee attempts to preserve his family’s profession through the hardships of his current displacement.
Meet Hajar, a 35-year-old who – with no family and no employment prospects – decided she would find a man who would provide economic security.
An aspiring musician, sisters-in-law from Damascus and a Syrian-Palestinian aid worker from Yarmouk make their way in Lebanon.
Among the films produced by one Syrian NGO: one of the first documentaries to look at the early effects that ISIS was having on residents of eastern Syria.
Ghaith Abdel Aziz
Al-Jaraf is one of a group of young Syrian editors who have quietly been making names for themselves as, for the first time, Syria has been introduced to non-state-run publications and radio stations.
Four years into Syria’s conflict, an unlikely crop – cannabis – has become a key source of financing for a number of groups in the opposition-held north.
In Aleppo, Sako, 60, owned an auto-repair business that employed 15 workers. Now the Syrian-Armenian, one of 11,000 to settle in Yerevan since the conflict began, rents and operates a small falafel and shwarma stand in the center of town.
In rural Idlib, marriage offices are fixing people up – but some say they’re exploiting the institution of marriage for wartime financial gain.
Safa Sankari
Women Under Siege reflects on the city’s changed landscape.
Qamishli festival aims to bring the arts back to Syria.
With canvas in short supply, Akram Abou al-Fouz paints on the shells scattered around his neighborhood in Douma. “We had shelling showers, so to speak,” he says.
As part of a collaboration between Syria Deeply and Rookie, we’re publishing the memoirs of a teenage girl living in the midst of Syria’s war. Marah, as she’s chosen to be known, lives in a city under siege. She was 15 years old when the uprising began. This is the seventh in her series of articles.
Tailors and store owners report a massive increase in sales of military-themed clothing as pro-government civilians don everything from camouflage dresses to generals’ uniforms in support of Assad.
In a country where team allegiance can run deeper than ethnic, religious and political divisions, many civilians might not have the money to watch next month’s televised World Cup action.
Meet the organization helping Syrian artists in Lebanon traverse Beirut’s burgeoning arts scene while maintaining their identity.
Meet the young Syrians seeking to create a bridge between Syrian and Turkish culture - and to provide safe haven for their country’s exiled artists.
After a barrel bombing campaign makes transport – and public gatherings – too risky, a young bride is forced to move her wedding to Gaziantep.
As the number of Syrians in Turkey grows, so does prejudice towards the hundreds of thousands many Turks fear are in the country to stay. But in Istanbul, a photo exhibit sought to put a human face on the conflict.
Anne Barnard reports on Syria and Lebanon for the New York Times, and has covered stories across the Arab world and Eastern Europe.
BASRA AL-SHAM, DARAA — Maan, a Syrian musician, was turned back at the Jordanian border in April 2011 after an arduous journey from his hometown of Basra al-Sham.
DUBAI – In 2010, Jaber al-Azmeh was just another commercial photographer in Damascus, working mostly with local ad agencies. Now the 40-year-old is one of the best known of a group of Syrian artists working to chronicle their country’s conflict.
HAMA – A wedding was once a magical day most Syrian girls dream of, but in wartime, many young women are settling for a ceremony that is a far cry from their imagined night, if they are able to wed at all.
When Syri-Arts started in Beirut three months ago, its chairwoman, Nora Jumblatt, didn’t think she’d get such a big response.
Aleppo native Kinda Hibrawi is a painter and a cofounder of the Zeitouna Foundation, which provides arts education to Syrian children at the Atmeh refugee camp in Atmeh, Syria.
Syria’s soap operas, known as musalsalat, have a large following in the country. “These are basically series that last for a month through the end of Ramadan, or just until after Eid.
At an event last week at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) officially released the Emergency Red List of Syrian Cultural Objects at Risk.
Ahmed shares his stories from running Radio Alwan, a talk radio station in the Syrian city of Saraqeb. .
This is the first in a series co-produced by Syria Deeply and Hyperallergic, investigating the visual and cultural responses to the crisis in Syria.
Once, the artist Tammam Azzam woke each morning and walked the busy streets of Damascus until he reached his studio. There, he’d paint – landscapes, or whatever came to mind. Now he operates from a financial complex with takeout sushi and the Ritz-Carlton a stone’s throw away, working where he finds space.
Ali Ferzat is a renowned Syrian political cartoonist and the creator of more than 15,000 published drawings. In August 2011, Ferzat was reportedly dragged out of his car while driving in central Damascus by masked forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad’s regime. His fingers were systematically broken and he was left for dead by the side of an airport road. In 2012, TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. The Hama-born 61-year-old currently lives and works outside Syria.
Another winter has passed at Domaine de Bargylus, and once-twisted, gray-barked vines are today burgeoning with green buds. Spring is a precarious season, when a late frost can decimate a vineyard’s chances of ever yielding a harvest. Like the majority of their countrymen, the owners of this young estate, Syrian brothers Karim and Sandro Saadé, weren’t born into wine. But if the mark of a good winegrower is the ability to adapt and take in stride the vicissitudes of life and nature, then the Saadés have already proven themselves beyond a doubt to be a pair of natural vignerons.
As Syria’s revolution rages, three young rockers from Damascus have reached their own boiling point. Armed with guitars, drums and lyrics, Pressure Pot (or Tanjaret Daghet in Arabic) burst onto the scene with their own kind of revolt. Now based in Beirut, the band members are Khaled Omran on vocals and bass guitar, Tarek Khuluki on guitar and vocals and Dani Shukri on drums. They say the name represents the eruption of discovery and creativity the three musicians have found through playing together. .
Amal Hanano is a well-known Syrian writer and blogger, as well as an associate editor of Syria Deeply. Here she explores this week’s destruction of the Umayyad Mosque, the architectural pride of her hometown of Aleppo.
Syria Deeply contributor Abu Hatem tells managing editor Karen Leigh about his favorite Homs eatery, a symbol – even in its ruin – of Syria’s rich ethnic tapestry.
KAFRANBEL, Idlib Province—For almost two years, Kafranbel, a small town in Idlib, has enthralled Syrians with its witty banners and cartoons, delivering a message of peaceful defiance that made it an icon of the revolution. But today its residents are split: on one side, ardent supporters of a democratic Syria, on the other, those who seek an Islamic state led by extremists such as Jabhat Al Nusra.
As part of our effort to highlight civilian stories, below is a conversation between News Deeply and a 24-year-old Syrian architect. She’s from a middle class Sunni family in Aleppo; the situation in her neighborhood got so bad that her father sent her, her mother, and her sisters to stay with friends in the city of Tartous, an Alewite stronghold that hasn’t seen unrest. Her father is still living under siege at home. .
As part of our effort to highlight civilian stories, below is a conversation between News Deeply and a 26-year-old artist in Damascus. He is a progressive Sunni who takes huge pride in the culture of his city. We asked him to share his impressions of what’s happening in Damascus.
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