“We have more in common than it seems": an interview with Oleksandr Magula about his trip to Syria after the fall of the Assad regime

UAPP member, photojournalist Olexandr Magula spent a week in Syria documenting the country's life after the overthrow of Bashar Assad's regime. He has seen a country that has gone through years of war, mass repression and destruction, but continues to live. Have Syrians really felt freedom after the overthrow of the dictatorship? How do they treat the Russians and Ukraine? Why can Ukrainian flags be found in liberated cities? And what can Syria tell us about the future of Ukraine? About this and much more in a candid interview.

‍

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend”: how Ukrainians were met in Syria

— Olexandr, why did you go to Syria as a photojournalist for the Public? What was the main motive for this trip?

— The main idea of the trip is to show that any modes sooner or later fall. This was explained to us several times during the preparation for the trip: the Assad family ruled Syria for 50 years, but their regime ended anyway. This is a direct allegory for Putin's Russia. Dictatorship can last a long time, but it is always doomed. This is especially symbolic, because the Assad regime supported Putin, and even that did not save him from collapse.

‍

‍

‍

Therefore, it was important not only to see Syria liberated, but also to record its tormentors. We, as Ukrainians, know what terror and mass crimes are — we do not need to look far for analogies. In Donetsk there is “Isolation” — the same place of torture as Sednaya. Syria seems to be a distant, Arab, Muslim country with which we seem to have nothing in common. But in fact, there is more in common than it may seem at first glance.

‍

— How did the locals react when they heard that you were from Ukraine? Did they see support in their eyes? Were there dialogues that impressed you?

We are, of course, a bit like aliens to them. Not for everyone, but for the majority. They look at you with interest, because Ukrainians are not frequent guests here. The first two or three days were stressful for me because of the culture shock. I understood how Arab countries lived, but the reality turned out to be harsher — an incredibly poor country where, after the fall of the Assad regime, power actually shifted to armed groups. We spoke with representatives of the transitional government, and they treated us normally.

‍

‍

‍

There is such a saying: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. And it was very felt there. As soon as you say that from Ukraine, the reaction changes — they begin to respect you, support you. Especially if they are educated people, and there are different percentages of such in Syria. There are people with three classes of education, and there are military or employees of the internal security service - something like our SBU. They guard rallies, law order in Damascus, walk in black uniforms. Most of them know what Ukraine is, or at least heard something about us. But there were those who did not even know that Ukraine existed.

‍

‍

‍

— How was your communication with the authorities? Did they feel some control?

— It is interesting to follow the example of the Ministry of Information of Syria — this is where we issued accreditations. They treated us quite kindly, which also confirmed the general loyalty to the Ukrainians.

But one moment was very revealing. We worked in Aleppo, our fixer went to make a namaz, and we were left alone in a ruined quarter of 2016. People started paying attention to us, watching, and then someone called the police.

‍

‍

We saw a car that stopped in the distance and followed us. Then five men came out of it. One of them was a policeman - it was only clear because he had a gun, because no one wears uniforms there. They approached and began to speak Arabic, and I replied: “I'm from Ukraine”.

‍

‍

‍

‍

Here their reaction changed. They were so excited when they heard this, and the policeman immediately asked for his passport. I already started to get it, but the rest of them stopped it: “No need, we believe you”. When our fixer returned, they became even more open. One of the men, who introduced himself as an employee of the Ministry of Information, said: “We support Ukraine. We are waiting for your victory over Russia.”

It is worth imagining this scene: we are standing in the middle of a destroyed area, there are ruins, garbage on the ground, children are running, and a man from the Ministry of Information tells me beautiful words about supporting Ukraine.

‍

“They lived under oppression for 50 years and did not believe that they would ever be free”

— The world media flew photos from Syria, where people spread Ukrainian flags on the streets. Have you seen the Ukrainian symbols there?

— Yes, Ukrainian flags could really be seen here. This proves once again that we have a good understanding of our struggle here. Ukrainians in Syria are something unusual, but many here see us as a symbol of resistance to dictatorship.

‍

— How are the Russians treated in Syria? Did you feel the presence of Russia there?

— “In Syria, they know very well who Putin is and what Russia is doing. Especially in Aleppo, because there was a Russian military base there for a long time. But ordinary people do not really distinguish between Ukrainians and Russians. In conversations, they often said: “Ukraine? Russia?”. But as soon as you explain that we are against Russia, that we are at war, you immediately see support.

‍

— You arrived in Syria when it was already a few weeks after the liberation. How has the atmosphere changed in the country? People have already accepted the new reality, has the first emotional wave yet been felt?

— We arrived there about 17—20 days after the release. It was not the first shock, but the euphoria had not yet subsided. People continued to celebrate. We really saw how in the streets of Damascus people were dancing, handing out candy, singing, shouting. One day a crowd gathered right under our hotel and just started jumping and shouting slogans. And we did not look for such moments specifically - if this happens by chance, then there was a lot of this on the scale of the city.

‍

‍

Everyone celebrated, both Muslims and Christians. We were there just for Christmas, and it turned out to be a double holiday: for Christians it was a religious event, and for Muslims it was another opportunity to rejoice in the fall of the regime. They sang slogans, shouted: “Assad, mountains in hell!”and it was repeated over and over again.

They lived 50 years under the dictatorship of one family. 13 years under Bashar Assad were horrors, concentration camps, lawlessness.

And so they became free. They say: “We were finally released, we didn't even expect it. We have come to terms with the fact that it will always be so.”

‍

‍

— How did the repression system work in Syria? What did the ordinary Syrians you talked to say?

— “They lived in fear, and that fear was total. It is important to understand that they could not even talk about the arrests directly. Sedna Prison was called “Uncle's Country House”. If someone was kidnapped, they said “they took them to the country to the uncle.”

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

But everyone understood what it meant. People were grabbed just on the street, and it was a system that hooked almost everyone.

I met a man who spent four months in prison simply for being from the city of Douma. Probably, the regime considered him disloyal or had some suspicions. But there are thousands of such stories. Literally every adult male we spoke to had been in prison for at least 20 days or more, or one of his family members had disappeared without a trace.

‍

‍

— “We saw in the news how many Syrians returned home from Europe after the fall of the regime. Have you met such people? What did they tell? Did they return to their homes or only find ruins?

— Yes, we met such people, and it was a very interesting moment. It happened on Christmas in the Christian quarter of Damascus. We again heard the usual cries of “Assad, mountains in hell!” and next to a group of Christians sat a company of young people.

I noticed that they were Muslims. This is an important point, because the fact that Muslims celebrate Christmas with Christians, sit in a bar and drink beer is unusual for Syria. This is not something that is forbidden, but definitely something new. You get closer, you see girls with open faces, someone has piercings, and you realize that these people are different.

‍

‍

We started talking to them and it turned out that they had all spent 6—10 years in exile. Some left in 2011 when they took part in the protests, others later when it became clear that the regime would not allow dissenters to stay in the country.

They said “I came to find my missing father.or “I'm looking for a brother.”

Some have returned home because they can finally. But in each of them, someone has disappeared - someone has a father, someone has an uncle, and zero information about their fate.

‍

— How do they see the future of Syria?

— “This is a very interesting aspect, because these people are educated, they know English, they have lived in Europe. they other. And when you ask them: “What now? What's next?”— they speak very clearly: “We want a secular state. We want all denominations to live in peace and harmony. We will not let our freedom be taken away again.”

These are people who have been through a lot. They know what a different life looks like because they have lived abroad, they speak English and are open to the world. And now they want to build a new Syria.

‍

— How badly has Damascus been affected by the war? What is the scale of the destruction? Does it resemble the Donbas?

— In Damascus, there is a very clear division between relatively whole areas and completely destroyed areas. The eastern part of the city, particularly areas of eastern Damascus, was the most affected. These are the places where the rebels resisted most actively. There are neighborhoods where there are not even ruins of houses left — just mountains of stones.

‍

‍

The western part of the city looks different. It is more or less preserved, here life goes on, people return.

I tried to draw parallels with Donbas, but it is difficult to compare. The war here lasted longer, and the nature of the destruction is different. But if we talk about the level of destruction - the closest, perhaps, can be compared with Bakhmut.

No one is in a hurry to disassemble the rubble. Somewhere you can see excavators moving stones, but this is rather an exception. In general, the city lives as if these ruins are just part of the landscape. For me, this is very much in contrast to Ukraine. For example, in Kharkiv, even in the most destroyed areas, such as Saltovka, they are still cleaned, repaired, restored. Even if the city is affected, there is movement. In Damascus, there is no such thing — the ruins just stand, and no one pretends that they will ever disappear.

‍

— Are the historical monuments in Damascus preserved? Have you seen cultural buildings, anything special?

— Yes, historic buildings have been preserved, especially in central Damascus. This part of the city suffered less, and here everything more or less survived.

For example, Martyrs Square, mosques, ruins of the Temple of JupiterMore than 3,000 years old, all this is still there. Moreover, the temple literally stands in the middle of the modern market, and people walk between its ancient columns, as if it were just part of the cityscape.

In this sense, the city has a “conservation” effect. It looks like it was stuck in 1985. The same signs, just abandoned streets and buildings.

‍

— What do you mean by “conservation”?

— It's when you walk down the street and you see architecture that seems to have stopped in time. Yes, there are modern things — some advertising screens, signs, cars, but in general the feeling is that the city just hasn't changed for decades.

‍

‍

Even the details — say, doors in old houses. They are huge, massive, with carvings, they can be a hundred years old, and they are still standing. And all this does not look like a museum, but like an ordinary dwelling — people just live here, in this architecture that seems to be frozen in time.

‍

— What did you see in Aleppo? Do people still live there, or is it a completely dead city?

— “Aleppo surprised me. For some reason I thought it was a smaller city, but it is huge. In fact, it is not inferior to Damascus in size. Before the war, about three million people lived here, it was an important trading city at the intersection of the Silk Road.

‍

‍

But the war did its thing. If in Damascus there is a clear division between the destroyed areas and the relatively survivors, then Aleppo is destroyed in a chaotic manner. It resembles Kharkiv: in some places the houses are whole, and then suddenly in the block there are several broken high-rise buildings. Somewhere the house is destroyed, somewhere the whole area, and then everything seems to be normal again.

‍

— What is life like in Aleppo now? Are there hospitals, schools, or is there any infrastructure working?

— Yes, there are hospitals, schools also work, but all this is extremely limited. For example, there may be only three hospitals for the entire city.

And in general, everything works very “in Arabic”. That is, today it works, tomorrow it broke, the day after tomorrow something was fixed, but something else has already broken. This is a common problem.

‍

— What do schools look like?

— We saw schools and children leaving classes. But the situation is very contrasting: across the street from the school is a completely destroyed quarter. Children go home, jump over a portrait of Bashar Assad lying on the ground, as if it were something mundane.

‍

‍

There are garbage dumps everywhere, the city is very poor, much poorer than Damascus. People there live in even more difficult conditions.

‍

— Have you talked to the locals about the Russians, about their role in the war? Have you been told stories about the bombing of Aleppo?

— In fact, they are so fed up with the war that they don't even talk much about it. Many left Aleppo, then came back, drove again and came back again. This has become a routine for them.

They don't talk about their losses with tragedy in their voices because they've been through too much. For them, war is already a part of life. If someone lost a brother or cousin ten years ago — it no longer causes strong emotions. They smile, communicate with us, but at the same time it can be seen that this is just a defense mechanism.

‍

‍

‍

— Did they say anything about the Russian presence in the city? After all, it is known that in Aleppo there was a Russian military base.

— We heard the story from the military who took part in the liberation of the city. But we must understand that it is impossible to check it.

We were told that two days before the opposition captured the city, two of their fighters infiltrated a Russian base and created a real chaos there. They staged a sabotage, eliminated about 50 Russians, and after that it became much easier to capture the base.

Whether it really was — it is not known. But Arabs like to tell stories that are more like legends. We were sitting with the military at a checkpoint near the territory of this base, they were talking about it, and maybe something like this really happened. But we cannot confirm it.

‍‍

“There is always someone in the crowd with a gun”

— How dangerous was it to work in Syria? Are there unexploded shells, mines, or were there any risks associated with explosives?

— To be honest, we thought about it the least. Yes, there were times when we were warned that in certain places there may be unexploded munitions, but in general this threat was not as great as in Ukraine.

There has never been such an intensity of artillery fighting in Syria as we have, so the ground there is not literally littered with mines and shells. It's a different type of war — more air strikes, infrastructure destruction, urban fighting.

But there were times when we drove onto new roads, tried to find mass burials — and that's when thoughts of danger appeared.

‍

— What is the social security situation? Have there been times when you felt threatened because of the people around you?

— This is a special moment. My acquaintances who have worked in the Middle East for a long time explained a simple thing: you will not know that you are in a dangerous situation until it already happens.

At first, you are received as a guest, greeted, smiled. But it is worth taking one wrong step outside the usual route - and the situation can change.

‍

‍

There is always someone in the crowd with a gun. Any interview or photo shoot can attract attention. For example, my colleague is interviewing, I turn around — I see that someone is behind me and is watching closely. After a minute I turn around again — already two. Then a few more people, and later someone appears in the crowd with a gun.

The main thing in such moments is that there is a fixer nearby that will say: “These are the guests.”And that's enough. In Arab culture, guest status is very important, so when hearing this, most people calm down.

But security is also about weapons. Here, almost every man has it with him. If you don't wear it all the time, you definitely have it at home. If a man doesn't have a gun, he's not exactly a man in their understanding.

‍

— How do local people react to journalists? Have you worked with a fixer? Are there topics that are better not to talk about and people that are better not to shoot?

— Everything depends on the fixer. Without it, you can't do anything. You won't even be able to move normally because it's dangerous. Our fixer is a local journalist, he has a telegram channel with 14 thousand followers and a YouTube channel. He knows the situation, translates, explains the context. He himself said: “Knowledge of the language protects you from the evil of this people”.

In Damascus, he advised us not to shoot women in certain areas at all — he insisted on this very seriously, because it could cause serious problems. The fixer warned us of all potential threats.

‍

‍

‍

“Syrians are disappointed in the civilized world. They say, “You are next.”

— What was the biggest hit in Syria? Are there parallels with Ukraine?

— What struck me most was how similar we were. Not in a cultural sense, of course. But when it comes to war, about people abandoned by the civilized world — this is very resonant with Ukraine.

They also feel that they have been abandoned. Their rhetoric towards the West is very similar to what we hear from the Ukrainian military.

When they met us, they could sarcastically say: “Well, have you now understood what a civilized world is?”They believe that the world has betrayed them, abandoned them, and now Ukraine is on the same path.

‍

‍

When the revolution began, the civilized world did not support moderate forces. And then, when the radicals came to power, everyone just said: “Well, you see, they're all terrorists.” So they destroyed the Free Syrian Army — the same one that fought for a democratic Syria. Instead, only radical groups survived that were able to exist in this hell. The Syrians tell us: “See that they don't do the same to you.”They emphasize that Ukraine relies too much on the West.

“If the West wanted your victory, you would have won a long time ago.” These are words that I have heard from them more than once.

Another parallel is how Russian propaganda makes us Nazis and Syrians terrorists. They have long taken it as a joke. I talked to the military, and they laughed: “Here you have come to the terrorists! Well, is it scary?”

The Syrians know their history, they know who put the Assad regime in place. And they know who then left them. Syria was one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East. Architecture, culture — all this has survived. But 50 years of the regime destroyed its development.

‍

— What do Syrians think about their future? Is there any hope of rebuilding?

— Everything is very complicated.

If you ask the military, they want to build a caliphate, an Islamic state, restore order. They say that Damascus is “dirty city”That there must be strict rules.

If we talk to those who have returned from Europe, they want a secular state. They have seen a different world, they do not wear traditional clothes, they do not adhere to the strict norms of Islam, they want a democratic Syria.

But there is a third group — most ordinary people. They are exhausted, amorphous, their education is three or four classes. They are glad that the war is over and do not have a clear vision of the future.

‍

‍

‍

Officially, the new government says that the country's secularism will remain. But the military at the bottom say otherwise. Therefore, predicting something is difficult.

‍

— Do Syrians know that Ukraine helped the rebels?

— Yes, they know it.

Officially, Ukraine did not comment on this, but the press already wrote that our intelligence worked there, trained Syrians to use drones. They say: “We have a whole battalion of drones. There are rumors that there was a GUR here.”

And indeed, they do not have the means of electronic warfare. Drones are a key weapon for them. Syrians read the news, they know that Ukraine sent them humanitarian aid, opened a consulate. This creates a positive image of Ukraine.

But most importantly, they thank us for our struggle. Ukraine has inflicted significant losses on Russia, and this has probably weakened its influence in Syria, which has helped the rebels.

In my opinion, Syria is a country that the whole world has decided not to notice. This is a place where the interests of the United States, Russia and other world players converge. But when terrible things happened, no one interfered.

‍

‍

Unlike Syria, the whole world is watching the situation in Ukraine. However, attention does not guarantee real help. We Ukrainians have a better understanding of what is happening in the Middle East, because geopolitical ties are stronger than they seem.

‍

‍

‍

Oleksandr Magula — photographer from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Journalist Social News in Kyiv. He studied journalism at Kharkiv National University named after V. N.D. Karazin. Before the war, he worked in the local media. Collaborated with the largest German-language print publications in Europe (NZZ, FAZ, TAZ, Focus, DerStandard). Photographer's social networks: Instagram and Facebook

‍

We worked on the material:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Vira Labych
Editorial director: Olga Kovaleva
Literary editor: Yulia Futey
Website manager: Vladyslav Kukhar