Living in the City of the Dead

Saturday, February 15, 2025 

A REPORT FROM CAIRO BY A CORRESPONDENT OF WIKINEWS

The capital of Egypt is diverse and contrasting: five-star skyscraper hotels sparkle with neon lights and are visible from afar, and up close there are dark spots under stone fences and parapets that emit a pungent smell of urine. Almost every passerby is ready to help a foreigner — to explain what and how, but the attitude towards numerous homeless people sleeping under warm blankets on the sides of busy highways is “not very good”. The capital is the capital, so every provincial wants to get here, escaping from his “darkness of darkness”, where there is probably no work or leisure.

Even the most budget hotels (with rooms that cost two American dollars per day) are inaccessible to these people, so they have to sleep on the sidewalk. Based on the above, it can be assumed that people living in the numerous crypts and tombs of Cairo cemeteries are in a more privileged position (although it sounds strange) than those living on the streets.

…The first time I came here was during the day, “for exploration.” Heading into the depths of the “mournful place”, I greeted two elderly inhabitants of the “City of the Dead” (or “karafa”, as the Arabs call this place), sitting “at home” (if I may say so). They pointed to me in the distance: “Go, they say, where you were going, we are not expecting guests.”That’s what I did: why ask for trouble.Next is a small outlet selling local (Egyptian) snacks: not for the dead, of course. There are thousands of graves and tombs here, most of them are uninhabited. They look mostly like roofless rooms with a locked door. If desired, you can climb over the wall. At the end of the “tour” I met a man locking the door. It would seem that there was nothing unusual — a relative came to visit a deceased ancestor. But he had a bunch of about twenty keys on his belt. When the Egyptian saw the foreigner, he spoke first: “There is no further passage, a dead end…” Then I joined in the “conversation” in a mixture of two languages and signs. “There are 5,000 cemeteries here,” the source explained in broken English, “they are operational.”

I probably wouldn’t have been the author of the textbook “Hobo tourism” (and, in particular, the section on overnight stays in cemeteries) if I hadn’t come here the next night to sleep, having spotted the right grave the day before (which is exactly why I came). A random passerby (the cemetery is located between two residential areas in Cairo), seeing a foreigner with a backpack, began to dissuade from visiting the mournful place, appealing to the possibility of robbery at such a late hour. But after learning about the purpose of my visit, I agreed with the argument.

The overnight stay was uneventful, and the sleeping bag saved me from the cold.

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  Panoramic photo (view from the cliff), the City of the Dead is in the foreground

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  It’s better to be in a cemetery than like this…

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  Back of the bus stop, city center, near the Opera metro station

• The morning after a night spent at the cemetery