On Thursday in Sochi, Russian Minister of Transportation, Maxim Sokolov, reported that flights between Moscow and Cairo will resume in the near future. That is news we awaited for a long time. Not too long ago, Egypt received 2 million Russian tourists annually. But the love of the beaches is not the only thing that ties our countries together.
Here's Maxim Kiselev reporting about the evidence of our long-standing friendship.
"When I'm sad, I go up here and look at the Nile. There, beyond the dam, where our old Nubia used to be".
Their former life was flooded by the waters of Lake Nasser when Aishat wasn't even ten. Nubians settled on these shores even before the construction of the great pyramids. 50 years ago it asked them to move. And today, the descendants of archers in the pharaoh's armies inhabit souvenir villages. They live on tiny islands, as if in a stage setting. They trade trinkets and entice tourists with the sounds of a tambourine.
Aishat Siam: "There's more money now. There are many tourists, they buy everything from us. It is easier to live. But I miss those times when there was no dam, we had our own land, and no one bothered us".
It was necessary to disturb them in 1960 when Egypt had no choice anymore. Only the taming of the Nile could save the country from the real prospect of famine and an energy crisis. This has been the only provider in the desert for centuries. This river of life and death.
"Of course I remember how the water reached higher than the palm trees, it flooded everything, houses, villages, sweeping away all of the harvests. And the following year there was a drought. So, either too much water or too little.”
The battle for the right to dam the Nile at Aswan was joined by the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union. After the revolution of Gamal Nasser and his nationalization of the Suez Canal, the USSR considered Egypt its sister. Potentially an African Bulgaria. And the Soviet Union could not hand the project of its salvation to the West. Moscow won the billion-dollar contract for friendship.
"A great victory has been won thanks to the growing cooperation and friendship between the peoples of the United Arab Republic and the Soviet Union".
"We are now at the height of 190 meters and will drive like that for 4 kilometers across the very top of the dam. It's still quite astonishing, imagine, what we felt at that time".
Back then the Aswan Dam was given a big name — the Pyramid of the Twentieth Century. But not in reference to dimensions, since it's 17 times larger than the creation of Cheops, but in the enormous amount of work it took to build it in these hard desert conditions, where it's above 40°C in February. In 10 years, 2,000 Soviet engineers and workers turned a small trading town into an economic center of Egypt. Where 50 years later "Russian" and "friend" are almost synonyms.
Mohammed Abes, builder: "I was struck by the attitude. The Russians came not to command, but to work together with us. They helped and taught us. The working teams were mixed. They also came up with competitions. For example, if some group did 7 meters, they said, we will do 9".
To recall those years, Mohamed has a dozen photos, a medal with the dam, and this apartment in the Aswan quarter. The Soviet Union didn't just give Egypt a unique power station and a system of socialist competitions, houses like that have been built here neither before nor after.
Mohammed Abes, builder: "They don't build like this here — there is space between the two brick walls, you can feel that it's hot outside but cool in here. Russians built 50 of these houses just for workers".
The hydroelectric plant on the Nile removed the threat of energy starvation by securing 3/4 of Egypt's energy needs. As a dam, it protected the shores from floods that destroyed fields and villages every 5 years and saturated kilometers of sand with water.
Aswan is one of the hottest places on the planet. 500 times less precipitation than in Russia. Rain falls every few years. But for more than half a century, farmer's don't huddle close to the Nile. Reeds cover what used to be a desert.
Having created a huge reservoir that has enough water for 100 years, adding almost one million hectares of arable land to Egypt, the dam demanded new billions for a project comparable to its own scale.
Ahmed Salah, Ministry of antiquities: "That's all that is left from the island of Philae, which had a temple dedicated to Isis. The foundation stones are still at the bottom, we couldn't raise them".
It's a mystery why the cry for help came from Egypt after the first stones had already been laid at the base of the dam. The size of the reservoir and how many antiquities in the valley would have ended up underwater was clear even from the plans. When they realized it, the time to save Pharaonic tombs and sanctuaries was short.
If not for a special UNESCO operation, dozens of the greatest monuments of antiquity would have remained at a depth of 60 meters. They were taken apart into thousands of pieces and moved to islands and hills, where water could not get to them.
Small boats with tourists somehow manage to squeeze by the rocky coast, maneuvering between stones that were sanctuary foundations. Which like the Nubians, are now registered at a different address. The Temple of Isis was moved to another island in 45,000 steps, according to the number of fragments into which it was broken. You can see the lines through which the columns were cut with very thin saws. It cost $15 million to save the Temple of Isis, one of the most revered goddesses of ancient Egypt, the wife of Osiris, the mother of the god Horus and the goddess of fertility, who reconciled the builders of the dam with a little bit of history.
But the main battle for the great creation of Ramses II was ahead. The Abu Simbel temples were carved into rock. It's a monument equal in importance to the pyramids. Choosing ways to save it took too long, and they barely had time before the water came. From the future bottom of the lake, scholars and engineers from 50 countries moved statues and columns block by block, plates with ancient frescoes, and even a head that fell off thousands of years ago was put back by the pharaoh's feet.
Amr Elbeltagi, historian: "The head fell off during an earthquake in the year 27, so, when the specialists brought all the temple's pieces to the new location, they checked each cm, and laid the head in the same place as in the previous temple location — at the pharaoh's feet".
The cutting was done as not to mutilate the faces, wounds from saws which cut inches a day are barely noticeable even now, and only if you're a few steps away from the huge statues at the entrance. Everything had to be reassembled again. And not only the statues and columns. But even the rock, which, of course, in reality, is not just a rock. A huge iron-concrete dome was built above the temple, which was covered with stones so that present-day tourists could see almost the same thing as the Egyptians saw 3000 years ago.
It's still difficult to understand how modern engineers recreated an optical effect that's over 3,000 years old. Twice a year, a sunbeam penetrates the temple through its galleries, and, in the last room, falls on the faces of the Pharaoh and 2 gods, leaving only one in the dark.
Amr Elbeltagi, historian: "Only Ptah is not illuminated, because he's the god of the afterlife and darkness".
The battle for the Nile and against it ended in the 70's, leaving in its memory monuments separated by millennia. The latest is a stone lotus over the dam, with the symbols of the Soviet Union and Egypt, and inscriptions in two languages.
In the corner of one of the stone petals is a carved inscription about the great victory of Soviet-Arab friendship, world freedom, and progress. A quote by Anwar Sadat, the same person who, after only a few years, would ask all Soviet specialists to leave Egypt. Even now, Egypt justifies separating from Russia as a political necessity, this is what they had to do to stay afloat as they maneuvered between two superpowers. The contracts of Soviet geologists, builders and soldiers didn't survive the move. But the Russian language did.
Nur Nada, professor of economics: "I came back to Egypt as a different person".
Professor of Economics, Nur Nada, is one of thousands of Egyptians who are the proud holders of one of our university degrees. He's sure that the knowledge from Moscow helped him to get a PhD in economics before many people. But most importantly, Soviet graduates, following Aswan builders, injected Russian culture into Egypt.
Nur Nada, professor of economics: "Russia is inside us, so I can say it's the second Motherland. And Russian culture, I love the culture very much".
Hani is a star of the Cairo Ballet and is opening his fourth school in Egypt. He was brought into ballet by a Russian choreographer. He soloes in the main productions and dances on European stages, and recalls how not so long ago Russian was second after Arabic behind the scenes of the opera theater, and in the orchestra—Russian was third.
Hani Hasan, Opera and Ballet Theatre of Cairo: "Russians were in the National Opera, in the Symphony and Opera Orchestras, and everyone in our Bela Ballet Academy".
And not only the dam, ballet, education, and language to which any passerby in Cairo instantly reacts, here they cherish our memory.
Ashraf Farouk Bakr, taxi driver: "I've been driving Ladas for 23 years, I used to have a Kopek, then a Peterka. Now I have this one. It's very suitable for Alexandria's climate — it doesn't rot like the others, and you can fix it right on the road".
Ashraf got his first Lada from his father. He is one of hundreds of Alexandrian taxi drivers, for whom the Lada is not a car to joke about. His Semerka, which was built 8 years ago at a plant near Cairo, had to be worked on. But only so it could work in 40°C temperatures.
Ashraf Farouk Bakr, taxi driver: "We replaced the aluminum radiator with a copper one, and a bigger fan for better cooling. All it takes is undoing 3 bolts, it's very easy".
Yellow-black Alexandria taxis have familiar outlines. There are no later models. AvtoVAZ has one of the main foreign assembly plants in Egypt, creating thousands of jobs. Repair shops that specialize in Ladas don't even need shops or garages here. A few square meters of hot asphalt is enough. Egyptian streets and squares are a living advertisement of the Russian car industry. Alexandria's roads are crammed with Kopeikas, Pyaterkas, and Semerkas. Here, the number of Ladas per person is definitely more than in Russia.
- The main assembly line will be here. We're checking everything now and getting ready for the launch. In 10-15 days we will start to assemble Lada Grantas. They're in very high demand.
A 7-year lull in Lada production opened the Egyptian market to the Chinese. In a neighboring shop, Granta siblings are stamped with batches that consumers buy instantly. The Egyptian car market is hungry. 40 cars per 1,000 people. Ranked #200 in the world. And it will only get worse. The population grows by 2 million a year. And certainly not people for whom the Lada's price and class are too low. Signs reading "2107" and "2110" have been saved over the conveyor belts as a reminder that since the beginning of the 21st century, 50,000 Ladas of different generations have been assembled in Egypt. But the Arab Spring didn't just affect tourism. It almost killed the already weak local auto industry. And only after 7 years, AvtoVAZ is making some headway into the local market. The Lada Granta will be the battering ram.
To understand what Russia meant to Egypt, it first needed to lose us. First the Russian specialists and teachers. Then the tourists. And so far neither the West nor China could fill the resulting gaps.
Gamal Saleh, boat owner: "3 years ago I picked up tourists at 7 am, and there was a line of hundreds more on the banks. Now I stay on shore for 5 hours with no clients".
Maxim Kiselev, Filip Dubrovsky, Vladislav Mirzayan, Viktoria Laneeva. Vesti News of the Week reporting from Egypt.
