Beirut In the eastern corner of Beirut, where the bustle of the Corniche hustle and the features of the glass towers, the story begins, a living story that does not resemble others, whose name is “Burj Hammoud”.
A neighborhood appears at first sight as if it is a tangled map of narrow alleys, simple shops and cannot be calm, but it is in fact a small piece of Armenia woven over the soil of Lebanon, with all its memory, language and craft.
Here, you do not need to ask about the Armenians, every stone in the place answers it in its language. The facades of the stores are flashing with Armenian letters, the smell of “sausage” and “Bastairma” sneaks from the popular ovens, and gold shines in the facades of small workshops, as if it was telling the stories of the displaced who came with the letter from Marash, and lived for eternity.
Gold tells its language
Since the Armenian line, the first drafting store in Burj Hammoud has changed the shape of gold in Lebanon. It has become more accurate, more patience, and closer to artistic artifacts than jewelry. Dozens of workshops are stacking in the neighborhood, such as the railways, each of which tells the biography of a family that inherited the profession as if it were a holy heritage.
Formulating gold here is not a passing profession, but a craft that breathes Armenian language and works on the pulse of memory. It is not surprising, then, for the Lebanese, and some tourists also, Burj Hammoud in search of an “Armenian piece”, as if it were a technical signature on the body.
“Marash” in the heart of Beirut
In the alleys of the neighborhood, you hear a lot of the phrase “Bari Galust Sirei”, meaning “prefer my dear”, as if it was the secret key to cross into a world of craftsmanship.
The Armenians in the Burj Hammoud not only merged into the Lebanese fabric, but they woven into them their own strings, colored, such as the embroidered Armenian fabrics, and elaborate as their microscopic navigation.
The alleys branch and interfere, until it reaches a street called “Marash”. The name alone is enough to awaken memory, Marash (մարաշ), the city, which was once a civilized center in the Ottoman Sultanate. Today, it has become a name for a street bearing the pulse of Armenian history in the heart of Beirut.
There are under dim lights, you find craftsmen who have not left the profession for generations, and still knock on the metal as if they were discussing their own tales.
In one of the corners of the neighborhood, the Lebanese Armenian sculptor, Ashoud Tazyan, works inside his small operator, where wood and stones turn into exquisite sculptures, and his workshop is not only a place to work, but a small museum that breathes a collective legacy with a lot of stillness and depth.
When the diaspora becomes a flavor
But the story of the Burj Hammoud is not complete without stopping at the taste, in almost every street an old oven, a family kitchen, or a small store that smells of meat stung by Armenian spices, “meat with dough” baked in the way of the grandmother, and “pasta with milk and garlic” is cooked as if you are in an Armenian house in the middle of Yerivan, the capital of Armenia.
Then there is “Pastma Manu” the name that has become a title in the neighborhood since 1966. In this place, sandwiches are stacked as an archive of the flavor, the Bastarema, the sausage, the shawarma … all of which are offered with fresh bread and household pickles.
No one comes to the neighborhood and does not stand at Manu, as the place – as Al -Kasan says – is not a restaurant but a “state” that is eaten and said.
The language that was not lost
Despite the fluctuations of time, the Armenian language remained alive in the Burj Hammoud, as if it were forgetting, hearing in stores, taught in schools, and reading on road signs, the Armenian school network here was not just a place of education, but rather a wall protection wall.
As for the cultural centers and associations, they are open theaters to display the remaining memory, from dances to plays, from poems to art exhibitions, everything here celebrates survival, not by surviving the war only.
A long access story
The Armenians did not come to Lebanon at once but rather in painful stages. The first wave was during the First World War between 1915 and 1916, when about 40,000 of them crossed to Lebanon, then 20,000 others joined them in 1939 after the intensification of World War II.
They stayed first in the Karnina near the port of Beirut, then they spread in the Burj Hammoud, Tripoli, Sidon, and Tire. And everywhere they resolved, they left a trace of their culture, and built a society that does not resemble the diaspora, but rather is like a homeland of reinstating it.
Open memory
A visit to Borg Hammoud is not like any other Tours of Beirut; It is a different journey, starting with a step and ending with amazement.
In this neighborhood that does not calm down or sleep, everything is beating in history: the sidewalks convey the steps of those who crossed, and the walls keep the features of those who passed, and the smells coming from bakeries and shops tell the story of a long homeland that remains alive in memory.
Whether you come as a tourist looking for a local experience, or you are Beirutia seeking to discover the face of your other city, the Borj Hammoud takes you to the scene beyond the scene: to the taste, to the craft, to the language, to the people.
It is a neighborhood that made it a life, and from its alienation an identity that does not resemble others. Every bite is eaten in it, which has a root in ancient Armenia and a branch in the present of Beirut, where cultures intersect and tales intertwine, to make an unforgettable experience.