Damascus, with its aura of the orient and historical glow hosted the Silk Road Festival 2005 last month. A warm welcome and generous hospitality was extended to participants who visited Palmyra with its famous ancient history, Der Al-Zoor and Aleppo.
Hundreds of invited guests, journalists and tourism professionals from more than 50 countries, together with their Syrian friends, enjoyed the activities of this marvelous annual event, with numerous art exhibitions, plays, music festivals, sports competitions and trooping the colors (the flags show) as well as the culinary festival.
Artistic groups from all over the world took part in most of the activities. The opening show was a Syrian play, أ¢â‚¬إ“Journey Through Timeأ¢â‚¬آ, which narrated the history of the Silk Road, followed by a fireworks display, which lit up the sky of Damascus.
A group from Belgium played in the opening and closing days (27th and 30th September) of the festival in Damascus and Aleppo. Indonesia, Turkey, Armenia and Jordan took part in the Traditional Crafts Exhibition, which was accompanied by traditional Tunisian music. The Market of Assaad Basha hosted the Arabic calligraphy exhibition with participants from Syria, Algeria and other countries. There was also a photo exhibition on the same site.
It was a surprise to see boats from the Euphrates at Der Al-Zoor. But we realized that this display commemorates an old tradition of announcing the arrival of silk caravans to Syria and that the Syrians competed to see how quickly they could broadcast the news. |