SAKAKINI PALACE: HOW ABOUT THE PALACE THAT TURNS A HUNDRED YEARS OLD
Habib Sakakini Pacha (1841-1923)

Sakakini had become a household name sported on tramways running through Fagala and Daher on their way to the residential district bearing the pasha's name. According to Moufarej, this 'rags to riches' saga started when Gabriel Habib Sakakini arrived from Damascus aged 16 to take on a job with the nascent Suez Canal Company in Port Said. For the next four years the Syrian worked for the paltry sum of 3-4 French francs per month, which leads us to believe that Sakakini's eventual move to Cairo was more for economic rather than health reasons. Otherwise, why did he sojourn in the city's North-Western outskirts, an abandoned area known for its mosquito-infested marshlands?
But what was it that occurred between the destitute young man's arrival from Port Said and his meteoric rise to fame and fortune earning him the lofty titles of papal "count" and Ottoman "pasha"?

Legend has it that Habib Sakakini attracted Khedive Ismail's attention when he exported by Camel Express sacks full of famished cats to the rat-infested Suez Canal Zone. Within days, the rodent epidemic was resolved. Quick to recognize inventiveness and initiative, the khedive made good use of the shrewd Syrian, giving him the daunting task of completing the Khedivial Opera House.
At 39, Habib Sakakini was assured the Ottoman title of 'bey', concurred in Constantinople by Ismail's suzerain, Padishah Sultan Abdelhamid. A decade later, Rome's Leon XIII conferred Sakakini with the papal title of 'count' in recognition of his services to his community. Le comte de Sakakini had donated the former palace of Saint Simonian architect Linant de Bellefonds to the Greek Catholic community for the construction of a cathedral.
But unlike the staid cathedral (located behind the Jesuit School in Fagala), Sakakini's circle-shaped palace is another story. With its many turrets, its conical and onion shaped domes and its medieval gargoyles and steeples, it looks more like a child's dream castle than a pasha's homestead. All it lacks to complete the fantasy are a moat and a drawbridge. The palace's 50 rooms and halls have more than 400 windows and doors, and the conspicuous decor includes over 300 busts and statues, many of them quite risqué. All in all, this is one of the best examples of a khedivial architectural folly.

According to the inscription above the Western entrance, the palace was built in 1897, which means this is its centennial year. One wanders, therefore, why such a rare piece of architectural kitsch is in such an advanced state of neglect? In Miami, Florida, or any other place, Sakakini palace would have become a shrine. Here, it is a dumping ground.
(by Samir Raafat Egyptian Mail, April 5, 1997)