Category: 50s to 90s

Just found out about this site called the Dawood Treasury which contains vintage articles from old newspapers. They have a section for Kuwait (where I got the ad above from) and also sections for other neighboring countries. I think the site is still getting updated so it should be interesting once they add a lot more stuff. [Link]

Thanks e7mood

I was wondering around tonight when I stumbled across an old photography store. Some pictures in the display grabbed my attention and when I looked inside I spotted an old man sitting reading the Koran and two other interesting photos. I decided to go in and check the photos out and I ended up spending around an hour there talking to the old man.

I won’t mention the photographers name or the shop location since I want to give him his space and privacy but he’s a Lebanese guy who ran away from an abusive father and took the bus and came to Kuwait in 1959. He hasn’t left since… not even once. He worked a variety of jobs here and there and in the end became a journalist and took some really great photos, some of which many of us have come across in one point in time or another. He ended up opening up his own photography shop and it’s been there ever since. Today the shop doesn’t sell anything, he doesn’t have any customers nor even a store sign. He broke the sign ages ago because to keep it up he would have to pay a fee of KD25 a year which he didn’t want to. He sold all his negatives to a newspapers years ago for KD200 and has a few photos he kept which he was selling framed for KD25 a piece but someone bought his photo and then made copies and started selling them for KD1 so that income stopped.

While there I spotted some old cameras behind an extremely dusty display that looked like it hadn’t been open since the 80s and my God what a beautiful camera collection. He had cameras from the 70’s and early 80’s still boxed brand new! He even had the beautiful rangefinder Konica S3 from 1974 which I had purchased used off eBay for KD60 last year, except he had a brand new one all boxed up and priced at KD45! He also had two brand new Nikon F3’s from 1980, a Vivitar 35EE, a Vivitar 35EF, Mamiya 135AF and boxed up Hasselblad but I couldn’t tell what model it was. I really want to buy them all but I don’t think he wants to sell them. He’s pissed off at the whole world, he’s depressed, he’s really old and he doesn’t want to sell anything. He told me 5 months ago his residency expired and he’s now living in Kuwait illegally. He feels that he’s been forgotten and no one cares about him or remembers him. How could someone who’s been in Kuwait for 50 years non stop still require an ikameh to live here? It made me realize that if I lose my job tomorrow I would have to leave Kuwait as well except I am young and I could always move to Lebanon and start a new life or something but this old man, where would he go? He’s easily at least 80 years old, he doesn’t have any family, never married, no relatives and he hasn’t been to Lebanon in over 50 years neither does he want to go back…

I had to leave but told him I would come back again since I wanted to listen to his life story and maybe give him some recognition with my blog. I also promised him the next time I go back I would bring my laptop along since I was telling him about the Internet and he told me he had heard about it but had no idea what it was. I told him I would come back and show him since he seemed eager to know how it worked and who invented it and how it looked. I asked him what time to what time I could find him at the shop he told me 24 hours. Turns out he lives in the shop.

Yesterday BuYousef emailed a link to an article in LIFE about Kuwait dating back to 1959 which contained a good amount of pictures and information. He had found that article by using the search feature in Google Books and it made me realize I might be able to find other hidden treasure and I did. Since his email I’ve been reading old articles none stop and I’m still not 0.0001% through them all.

A search for Kuwait in Google Books will get you tens of thousands of results but I managed to narrow down the search a bit and found the ones below:

1952 Venus is a crook in Kuwait
1955 Proved in the Blazing Heat of Kuwait!
1958 Fresh Water from the Sea
1959 Kuwait: the fabulous sheikdom
1961 A dusty vigil
1965 Everything’s up to date in Kuwait
1975 What happens when the oil is gone?
1979 Bite that tiger
1980 Solar power station for oil-rich Kuwait

Some of the interesting stuff I read weren’t just articles about Kuwait but articles that mentioned Kuwait. I didn’t post them above because there were too many but I did read some interesting stories like I was reading an article from 1961 about a Nazi war criminal that was hiding in Kuwait and then I read another small snippet from someone in Kuwait who had sent a letter to Boys Life. It’s just random bits like that which I found really entertaining to read. Google Books is just amazing.

Awhile back a reader sent me some PDF files related to the construction of the Kuwait Towers and Kuwait Water Towers. The PDF’s contain photos, sketches and information regarding the projects. For example according to one of the PDF’s the total cost of the Kuwait Towers was KD4,700,000 (or $16,450,000) while the cost of the Water Towers was KD2,800,000 (or $9,800,000).

Among the different sketches and architectural plans lies an interesting bit of information. According to one of the diagrams (close up crop above) there was a discotheque and dance floor planned in the Kuwait Towers on top of the restaurant along with an indoor garden. That would have been a pretty cool club although I don’t know how efficient the elevators would have been carrying the crowd up and down. You can download all the PDF’s and check out a ton of pictures from the construction to the completion of the towers by following this [Link]

Al Jazeera English have uploaded the documentary “Kuwait: The class of 1990” on to YouTube. It’s 47 minutes long so I haven’t watched it yet but should do so tonight. [YouTube]

Thanks Moey

Around 5 years ago I collected some photos of the Gulf War aftermath from various sources online and put them all up in a Flickr group. There are 48 pictures currently which you can check by clicking [Here]

Anyone know when this documentary on Al Jazeera will be showing or if they’ve already shown it. The subject seems very interesting since its about reuniting class mates years after the 1990 Iraqi invasion. In 1990 I graduated from Sunshine School which ceased to exist right after the Iraqi invasion (later it became BSK). I never ended up seeing anyone ever again but with the help of the Sunshine School Facebook group I was able to get in touch with some of them again. [YouTube]

Update: Taken from the Al Jazeera website

On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi army invaded the emirate of Kuwait, which Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, had declared Iraq’s 19th province.

The occupation of Kuwait may have only lasted seven months, yet the memory of it remains strong, not least in the minds of the children of that conflict.

At the end of the school year of 1990, students in an international school in Kuwait said their final farewells as they headed off for the summer holidays. Many of them would never meet again.

Al Jazeera’s Nashwa Nasreldin was one of those whose family was forced to relocate following the invasion.

Twenty years on, she returns to Kuwait, the country of her birth, along with a group of her classmates as they organise a reunion to find out what happened to their friends – and their school – during the war that separated them.

Kuwait: The class of 1990 can be seen from Monday, August 2, 2010 at the following times GMT: Monday: 1900; Tuesday: 0600; Wednesday: 0300; Thursday: 1400; Friday: 0600; Saturday: 1900; Sunday: 0300.

Here is some more old footage of Kuwait. This time around it’s 1975. The video has a lot of footage of the Gulf Road, Kuwait City and other various places around Kuwait. Good stuff. [YouTube]

Note: The video contains no sound.

This amazing and rare footage was shot with an 8mm camera back in the late 60’s early 70’s here in Kuwait. I think Kuwait looked better back then, I mean we had white picket fences! (Ignore the last minute of the video since that’s Lebanon not Kuwait) [YouTube]

Cinescape uploaded pictures of old movie theaters here in Kuwait to their Facebook group with the oldest theater dating back to 1954. I hope they upload pictures of Cinema Salmiya and the drive through cinema as well. [Link]

Thanks Mohammed

I recently got a hold of this beautiful picture of the original Sultan Center in Salmiya taken back in 1986. Here is a link to a larger version of the photo. [Picture]

Update: This picture was taken in 1986, not 1982.

This is the last of the 3 part series. In this video we travel from Fahaheel to Abu Halifa and then take a tour of a grocery store from the inside. What’s cool is you get to see some old packaging like the old Aero chocolate packs that used to be brown, some old KDD packs, and a brief glimpse at my favorite corn flakes, Country Corn Flakes. Good stuff. [YouTube]

In case you missed them here are the first two parts
Fahaheel 1988
Abu Halifa 1988

Thanks Simon

A collection of vintage metal lunchboxes. I used to have a few when I was a kid but couldn’t find any of them in this collection. [Link]

Due to the great success of the video Abu Halifa 1988, they’ve released the sequel, Fahaheel in 1988. [YouTube]

Thanks Simon

OK be prepared for the best post yet on this blog…

I was talking to a friend of mine about Salmiya in the 80s and one thing led to another and I was telling him how strong a brand Tikka was back then. I was telling him about the “I like it spicy” guy (pictured above) and the Tikka commercials and how if you asked anyone who grew up in Kuwait back in the 80s they would remember the commercial and even sing you the jingle. It became a classic like the Pizza Italia and Hungry Bunny commercials.

Anyway I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool to find out who the “I like it spicy” guy was, what happened to him and how he looked like today? Well guess what… After a bit of research and digging around I found out who he was.

The actor who played the “I like it spicy” character was Galal Zaki. He wasn’t an actor, he worked in the ad agency that came up with the idea. Like Alfred Hitchcock, Galal liked to star in his own work and that’s how he ended up becoming the Tikka guy. the picture below is of Galal Zaki which I found on Google and is dated 2007. Although a lot older now you can still see some resemblance.

Today Galal Zaki is the CEO of Perception Communication in Egypt. He was also recently awarded the Rameh IAA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Update: Here is an old Tikka commercial. It’s not the famous one but its better than nothing…

[YouTube]

Update2: And here is the more popular one…

[YouTube]