Damascus’ Bathhouses Down to a Trickle

With only a towel wrapped around his waist, Ibrahim Homsi stands idly next to a bubbling fountain at Hammam Sheik Raslan, one of the few remaining public baths in Damascus.

Forty years ago, he began earning his living as a “mukayyis,” a bath attendant who scrubs down customers with a horse-hair sponge that fits his hand like a glove.

Those were the glory days of Damascus’ public baths, architectural splendors that were a fixture of the city’s traditional life. They were the site of bachelor parties, women’s outings, even family picnics.

Today, the skill that Homsi, his father and his grandfather practiced is no longer much in demand. The once-numerous hammamat, or bathhouses, are steadily vanishing as centuries-old traditions give way to modern indoor plumbing, allowing most Damascus residents to bathe at home.

“There’s nothing else I can do,” Homsi, 58, said during a long break. “But there’s not that much work to do anymore.” His income depends solely on tips, which range from 50 to 100 Syrian lira, or $1 to $2.

About two dozen public baths remain in Damascus, down from as many as 100 in the early years of the century when Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire. Some are falling into disrepair; others are visited only rarely.

Before World War II, popular baths would draw 80 customers a day in the winter and 40 in the summer, historians say. Now, a dozen customers is a busy day.

“All the old aspects of life are changing--the baths, the old markets,” said Yasser Qassem, a 21-year-old soldier who stopped for a bath at the renovated 800-year-old Hammam Nur al-Din. “The bath is like a museum. You enter it and you go back to the old days of Damascus.”

Through its more than 4,000 years of history, Damascus has been famous for its plentiful water in an otherwise dry region. It grew up around an oasis created by the Barada River, which rushes out of a nearby mountain gorge.

For men, the bathhouses were a place to pass hours in the evening, especially in the winter. Some baths attracted only certain professions: farmers, artisans or Persian pilgrims visiting Shiite Muslim religious shrines in the city.

On the day before weddings, grooms would gather with friends, bringing food and sometimes a drum or flute.

Women sought out the baths as a refuge, one of the few places they could go without their husbands in a conservative Muslim society. They might spend much of the day with their children in the steam-filled rooms, vast stone chambers lit by colored glass tiles in the roof.

They prepared dishes made from lentils, cracked wheat and yogurt. Tradition dictated visits before a wedding and 40 days after childbirth.

“For women, the bath was the occasion to go out, spend the whole day outside the house and meet other women in the quarter,” said Sarab Atassi, a researcher at the French Institute in Damascus. “It was perhaps more important for women than men.”

The routine remains much the same as centuries ago, with the addition of modern amenities such as saunas, showers and massages. The works costs about 175 lira, or about $3.50. At Hammam Nur al-Din, for instance, a bath runs 100 lira, a sauna 50 lira, a massage 20 lira and tea 10 lira.

Male customers shed their clothes, then wrap a thin towel around their waist. An attendant provides a rough sponge and soap, and the customer washes himself over an ornate, stone basin.

In another room, the “mukayyis” uses his horse-hair mitt to scrub the entire body, diligently scraping off dead skin. The mukayyis then gives a rubdown.

A sauna is optional, followed by a rinse of cold water.

The customer then goes to the reception room, where he has five towels around him, including a tight one around the head. Under the bundle, customers sip herbal tea and smoke a water pipe with flavored tobacco.

“You feel like you’ve been pampered, taken care of and waited on,” said William Rugh, a former U.S. diplomat in Syria who religiously visits the bathhouses on his regular business trips to Damascus.

The Syrian government has helped restore at least eight bathhouses over the last decade in an effort to attract tourists.

And the passion of bath enthusiasts may delay the inevitable.

“Baths are fundamental. They will never finish in Old Damascus,” said Abu Zakariyya, an attendant at Hammam al-Malik al-Zaher, a bath in the Old City.