Omar knew something was up around 5am, when he heard cries of “Allahu Akbar” coming from the direction of the Assad family residences.
He was at home, following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government online, but he hadn’t expected the rebels to reach central Damascus so quickly.
“I immediately rushed towards Assad’s house. I had to see for myself that he was gone,” Omar tells Middle East Eye, crunching over broken glass as he retraces his footsteps from Saturday night. “My feet took me here, not my brain.”
Omar, who like many Syrians still has an institutional fear of speaking freely and wished to use a pseudonym, says the first thing he noticed was the smell. “It was a presidential scent,” he says.
Occasionally it still rises from the corners of this multi-story villa in the Malki neighbourhood of the Syrian capital, a musty cedar.
Now everything is a mess. Any bits of hardwood furniture that haven’t been looted are lying in pieces. There are French and Italian magazines strewn across the floors, as well as horror movies on DVD and family photos. A lot of family photos.
An Assad family photo found in one of their palaces (Daniel Hilton/MEE)
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") rgba(220, 220, 220, 0.5); top: -15px; left: 0px;">Torn out of albums are pictures of Bashar as a baby, his brother Basel - the heir to the throne who died in a car crash aged 31 - at an equestrian event and their father Hafez: austere, suited and surrounded by his sons.
Hafez al-Assad, the late founder of the newly toppled 54-year ruling dynasty, lived here, and the place has a distinctly 1970s feel.
The library is well stocked with volumes celebrating the Assad family’s deeds: construction work, statements against Israel and supposed gifts to the Syrian people.
Elsewhere is a file labelled “top secret” containing details of Hafez’s employees. On a table, rebels have laid out the front page of a newspaper from the day Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000.
A newspaper from the day Bashar al-Assad was named president (Daniel Hilton/MEE)
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") rgba(220, 220, 220, 0.5); top: -15px; left: 0px;">Omar remembers coming into the hall and seeing a large painting of Bashar on the wall in front of him. “That bastard, that son of a bitch. I tore it down.”
He was one of just a handful of civilians to go in. Everyone else were rebel fighters, firing their guns and shouting “Syria is free”. “Honestly, it was terrifying,” Omar admits, though he pressed on inside.
He noticed people coming down the stairs carrying heaps of clothes from the bedrooms. “There was every kind of shoe you can imagine, Nike, Adidas, everything.”
He picked up a few jackets for himself. “I should burn them but it’s hard - they’re very nice.”
Designer goods and Russian books
Today the Assad family’s bedrooms are a graveyard of designer clothes boxes. Chanel here, Givenchy there, and a large package from Aishti, the upmarket Lebanese department store.
“We also found gifts from other presidents, including a piece of the kiswa,” Omar says, referring to the cloth used to cover the Kaaba in Mecca, though he’s not sure what happened to that in the end.
Omar inside one of the Assad family palaces, Damascus, Syria (Daniel Hilton/MEE)
") rgba(220, 220, 220, 0.5); top: -15px; left: 0px;">Stairs down to the basement reveal a network of tunnels. One is labelled as leading west, another east.
And a third takes you to the neighbouring house, something a little more modern, with wrought iron sculptures suspended from the ceiling and full-length windows drawing in light from the gardens.
This appears to have been where Assad’s children lived. Maths puzzles are traced along the lines of exercise books.
A certificate from the World Robot Olympiad declares that Bashar’s son Karim al-Assad, now 19, attended a robotics training programme. Hafez junior, the 23-year-old who was destined to inherit the presidency before everything fell apart, stares out of a class photograph.
“They had a small piece of heaven while everyone starved,” Omar says.
Next door to this house is a building where Russian diplomats stayed. They have long gone, but two plump grey cats greet anyone coming through the entrance, nuzzling boxes of ammunition.
Syrian rebels say they are feeding the cats (Daniel Hilton/MEE)
") rgba(220, 220, 220, 0.5); top: -15px; left: 0px;">Abu Jassim, a fighter who has made the hallway his bedroom, says the rebels feed the abandoned cats, but haven’t named them yet.
The Syrian rebels promised Russia they would protect its embassy and military bases. Many files remain in their cabinets, but bookshelves labelled “Russian literature” and “foreign classics” have been emptied.
On the floor above are the private apartments, where it appears Russian diplomats enjoyed Bailey’s Irish Cream from shot glasses with “Ukraine” written on them. A swimming pool lies empty on the roof.
Ghosts and riches
Assad had so many villas and palaces in Damascus that he could have stayed in a new one every day of the week.
Tishreen Palace, a vast complex at the foot of Mount Qasioun, is eerily quiet. Clearly not a lot was going on here before rebel forces charged out of Idlib province on 27 November, an offensive that prompted the Syrian army and government to dissolve in a week and a half.
Most of the furniture and lighting are enveloped by plastic wrapping. Few foreign dignitaries have visited Damascus over the past 14 years, so there was little need to show off the chandeliers and antiquities that line the palace’s broad halls.
") rgba(220, 220, 220, 0.5); top: -15px; left: 0px;">And besides, Assad preferred the newer Presidential Palace overlooking the capital from Mount Mezzeh, where rebels turn the curious away at the gates.
Al-Muhajireen Palace, however, has become a tourist attraction.
Abu Jihad, a 20-year-old rebel fighter from Hama, seized the Ottoman palace on Saturday night, hours after taking Homs, Syria’s third city 150km to the north.
“All the guards had run away, their guns and uniforms were on the floor,” he tells MEE.
Bashar and Hafez al-Assad in a photograph from one of their palaces (Daniel Hilton/MEE)
") rgba(220, 220, 220, 0.5); top: -15px; left: 0px;">Now Abu Jihad is the one guarding the palace’s entrance, ushering families in to look around the home of Muhammad al-Abid, who served four years (1932-1936) as president during the French Mandate.
Climbing the stairs up to the villa named after the immigrants from Crete who settled in the area towards the end of the 19th century, Abu Jihad describes how he entered on Saturday night to find it near-empty. Local residents had got there first.
Feras, a 45-year-old dentist, is taking pictures of his wife sitting in an ornate chair.
“I never expected to find this level of luxury in Assad’s palaces,” he says. “But it doesn’t make me angry. It just exposes how he was a thief while we were poor.”
