'I haven't sold anything'

Vineyard in limbo a year on from fall of Assad regime

- William Christou

Abu Ali spent the first hours after the toppling of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad boxing up his merchandise.

Old-regime bumper stickers, mugs with Assad’s face, T-shirts on which Russian and Syrian flags faded into each other - it all had to go.

A year later, the weathered tourist shop on the boardwalk of the coastal city of Tartous has entirely new products. The shelves are lined with the new three-star Syrian flag, mother-of-pearl jewellery boxes engraved with revolutionary slogans and pictures of rebel fighters killed during the country’s 14-year civil war.

“Business is slow these days. Tourists and travellers used to come before but now it’s slowed down. We just need more security and things will improve,” said Ali, 48, the owner of the shop.

Ali’s old customers - Russian soldiers from nearby military bases, American military influencers and Lebanese tourists - have disappeared. Only the faded Cyrillic on the storefront hints at the shop’s past hawking Assad regime wares.

A year after the fall of the 50-year Assad dynasty and its replacement by an Islamist-led government, Syrians are renegotiating the symbols and culture that once defined their country. Statues of Hafez al-Assad have been toppled and bulldozed and the portraits of his son Bashar that were once plastered across every billboard, office and classroom now survive only as defaced remnants if at all.

The pace of change has been blistering. The sudden collapse of the Orwellian security apparatus that controlled all facets of life and the arrival of the new government has left Syria in a state of cultural flux.