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MOSCOW(Sputnik News) — The Baron Hotel in Aleppo was once Syria’s grandest and most stylish hotel, a legend in itself due to its high profile guests like Lawrence of Arabia, Charles de Gaulle and Agatha Christie; but since the war arrived in Syria’s commercial hub in 2012, there have been no paying guests and the once-glamorous building is losing its centenary charm.
The idea of building a luxury hotel in Aleppo came at the end of the 19th century. Sometime around 1870, a member of the Armenian Mazloumian family was on her way to Jerusalem for pilgrimage.
While passing through Aleppo which was, even at that time, a cosmopolitan center of commerce, she noticed how uncomfortable Europeans felt when staying at the traditional caravanserais.
Eventually, she decided to build something modern in Aleppo and the result was the Ararat hotel, named after the mountain revered by Armenians, the first hotel in the region, at the end of the 19th century.
A few years later the Mazloumian Brothers enlarged their business by setting up the new Baron’s Hotel.
His wife, Rubina Tashjian, is now the only person left to watch over the decaying walls, which hold so many memories.
In the Baron’s lobby, on a yellowing wall, an advert from the 1930s can still be seen. “Hotel Baron, the only first-class hotel in Aleppo,â€
