The Thieves’ Market: Surreal Life in Syria

By Mariam Abdullah*

(Damascus, Syria) –  The famous thieves’ market in Damascus, adjacent to the public administration office of the Ministry of Interior, was known as a haven for poor people who would go to buy worn-out merchandise. It was a refuge for people with very limited income, allowing them to buy old furniture, mobile phones, watches, and used electronics. The market is no longer only for goods that were stolen or discarded in garbage dumps, but has transformed into a miraculous place that holds the story of a Syria that was pillaged and robbed. It has become a wondrous combination of stolen or looted goods and items sold by fleeing owners or displaced citizens. It became a place where memories are bought and sold.

This market was founded in the 1950s in Syria, and was named the thieves’ market because it carried a number of stolen, used, or discarded items. One can now find in it a used frying pan that was never cleaned, a chair with a child’s crayon markings, or a closet that makes one wonder whether its owners sold it or whether it was stolen.

The diversity of the items to be found in the market mirrors those of the various stories of Syrians. There are those whose houses were looted before their very eyes, unable to do anything; there are others who saw their furniture being sold and had no choice but to buy it back.

Nasser, in his mid-thirties, is from the neighbourhood of Tadamon and currently lives with a relative. He told The Damascus Bureau about the time he saw his own laptop in the hands of one of the shabiha in the thieves’ market.

“I knew it was my computer from the moment I laid eyes on it,” he said.  “I had put a picture on it that the thief had forgotten to remove. It was a symbol of the revolution – Qashoosh’s throat (Ibrahim Qashoosh is a Syrian singer from Hama who became known as the voice of the revolution. His body was allegedly found in July 2011 in the Orontes River with his throat cut out). I asked him for the price and I bought it for 10,000 lira. It is worth 100,000 lira, but the thief did not know its real value.”

Imad Darwich, 45, came from Homs and was surprised to find his furniture in the market. He wondered how it travelled to the heart of Damascus.

“It is known that Homs has the Sunni Market, where goods stolen from Sunni neighbourhoods are sold,” he said.  “Goods arrived at this market through the road to Damascus, but when I saw my furniture in the thieves’ market, I had a strange feeling of elation. Here is my furniture, which I picked out piece by piece with my wife, in front of my own eyes; here are our children’s memories. I decided to buy them back no matter what the cost, and this is how I retrieved my stolen furniture.”

Abu Mahmoud, one of the merchants in the market who knows its history since its inception, pointed out that not all the goods in the market are stolen. This line of work has many secrets, and Abu Mahmoud has spent 50 years in it.

“Yes, there are many looted and stolen items, but there are also lots of things that were sold by their owners when they decided to leave their homes, at risk of bombing,” he said.  “Some of those fleeing the cycle of violence and destruction sold their furniture to rent houses in safer areas, or to feed their children after they lost their jobs. This is very common, and it is lucrative for hustlers who profit from crisis.”

Sanaa al-Sayyed is a university student of around 20.  She said she and her family cried as they sold their furniture.

“We had no other choice,” she said.  “These are my childhood memories. We sold our bookshelf with the books it housed, the closet and the washing machine, all to pay for my brother’s treatment and to secure his escape from the country to save him from being drafted into the regime army or the Free Syrian Army.”

In the market there is a blackboard with chalk marks still on it, a drawing of a sun, mountains, and a small hut. There are also picture frames with photos still inside them, looking like a surreal painting that reflects the situation in Syria.

The market of memories, the thieves’ market, contains the pain of all Syrians, those who have been robbed and looted, those who had to sell their belonging to find ways to live and flee or to feed or treat themselves.

On the merchants’ side are some who have built new stations in the market to sleep in or drink tea and coffee while they run their businesses and manage the influx of merchandise coming in from different regions. They stay up until the crack of dawn, their voices intermingling with the sound of cannons, gunfire and cars in streets filled with the smell of gunpowder, mint leaves and thyme.

The ugliness merges with the beauty; filth with the purity of vegetables arriving from nearby villages, or the faces of children looking on in supplication for a few Liras. The merchants are the bosses of the market and they know there are treasures to be sold for cheap. They bare their fangs at anyone who attempts to hold them accountable, for they are protected by the state. They wait for a beaten down buyer looking for some essential items such as a washing machine or an oven or a mattress to make do with his situation in a shelter or a garden or a small room in a safer area after losing everything he owned.

No words can adequately describe the market, no camera can document all that goes on there, and no surreal painting can capture the blackened soul that envelopes the entire place.

* Mariam Abdullah is the pseudonym for a journalist who lives inside Syria.