The first Korba Festival was held to celebrate the centenary of Heliopolis in 2005. Heliopolis was established in 1905 by Belgium Baron Empain, Édouard Louis Joseph an amateur Egyptologist. When building on the new suburb began it was a stretch of desert 10 km away from the centre of Cairo (now known as Old Cairo or Masr El- Kadima), nowadays it is slap-bang in the centre of the city.
Since 2005 one street (Baghdad St.) in the Korba area of Heliopolis has been closed to traffic on a Friday to become a place where people can enjoy a stroll around through the street with shops and coffee shops spreading out onto the pavement to display their wares and entice you to spend. There's the chance to leave your mark by drawing on the roads and pavements in chalk and for several days afterwards it makes driving down that street a little bit more colourful.
This year the theme of the festival was Music the Language of Peace and featured various artists from around the world (don't ask who, I arrived late and missed the line-up!) the star attraction of the evening though was Egyptian jazz musician Yehia Khalil. The atmosphere was loud (this is Egypt after all) and electric with plenty to see and do and other music styles available further down the street if the music at the main street wasn't to your taste.
So if you're ever in Cairo and the Korba festival is on, I highly recommend you hop in a taxi and go have fun at the Heliopolis street party.
Myself.
I would like to go to that festival, Alaa told me about it and I saw some pictures. I am sure you had a blast.
ReplyDeleteIt was fun Alma, if you're here for the next one we'll definitely go.
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