A friend of mine gave me a video his parents shot back when they first arrived to Kuwait in the mid 70s. The video was shot with Super 8 film which was converted years later to VHS format and then recently digitized. The video contains a lot of different footage of Kuwait but edited down to 13 minutes so it’s not very long. Here is a breakdown of what you’ll see in the video, please note there is no sound:
0:00 Kuwait Towers still under construction. There were rumors circulating that the tower spheres were going to be in gold and when they first started adding the blue tiles people were generally disappointed it wasn’t in gold.
2:25 A drive down Fahad al Salem street
3:16 Naif palace, you can see the execution gallows through the open gate at 3:24
3:28 The old National Assembly
3:30 The Arab Planning Institute, currently where the Liberation Tower stands
3:39 Heading towards the Gulf Road
4:15 American Mission Hospital
5:05 The ice cream guy, probably the only thing that hasn’t changed in Kuwait
5:09 Seef Palace
5:14 The Gulf Road near the Dixons House. Nearly all of those old Kuwaiti houses have now been demolished.
5:48 A gas station on the Gulf Road on the beach side. This was demolished after the failed assassination attempt of Sheikh Jaber Al-Sabah, who was the emir of Kuwait at the time. The car explosion had taken place near the station.
5:53 The British Embassy, the main entrance was on the Gulf Road.
6:45 The Behbahani Compound where Casper & Gambini, Starbucks and Dar al Funoon are currently located.
6:56 Almagsab Gate
7:05 Old secondary school now part of the Kuwait University campus.
7:14 Shanty towns. This is where non-Kuwaitis were staying while their paperwork to become Kuwaitis were being processed. This specific town was located in the north near where Entertainment City is currently.
8:13 Dhow building yard near the Port of Doha
10:00 A drive through Shamiya
10:34 Back to Fahad al Salem Srteet
10:50 The old KNPC building
11:23 Souk Al-Mubarakiya
12:54 The gold souk
The video above was shot by Jo and Jeff de Lange. They were also nice enough to take me through the video frame by frame and explain what I was seeing so I could share it with you. [YouTube]
11 replies on “Kuwait in 1975”
Amazing.
This is shot just a year before I was born.
Forwarded it to my parents and they totally appreciated it.
Thanks Mark, Jo and Jeff de Lange for this wonderful post.
Old is gold,the cars i see in the video,i remember i had them as toys.
i think there are still few houses in sharq undemolished,they should be repaired and made museums.I really want to jump into the past Kuwait.
Wow Thanks so much for sharing. This is a wonderful piece of history. Throw back time, I was 12 then living in Stockholm Sweden, quite different. Six years in Kuwait now I really enjoyed watching this video. Thanks again. Super !
I admire you for caring so much about the historical preservation of Kuwait. It is REALLY hard to find old photos and videos of Kuwait on the net and I, like other readers I’m sure, appreciate that you take the time to post them (with information in English). I wish that more people would do the same.
I love this video! Thanks!
Thank You Mark, I sent this video to my Mom and she loved it. Sadly dad passed away 03 years ago otherwise it would have been very nostalgic for him had he seen it. He was in Kuwait since 1968 and this was shot a year before I was born. My brother was 04 at the the time so I sent it to him as well and he just me a one line reply.. ” Memories,the good old days..” 🙂
Thank you once again Mark for sharing and helping us remember our past and happier moments.
With all the new developments and changes, has it become better?
The Bedouins used to live in those shanty towns
That’s so sad… I’m glad Kuwaiti Bedouins now have equal rights
at 10:00 thats showaikh aria not shamiya and im 100% sure
“0:00 Kuwait Towers still under construction. There were rumors circulating that the tower spheres were going to be in gold and when they first started adding the blue tiles people were generally disappointed it wasn’t in gold.”
Back in the day there was nothing impossible in Kuwait (like Dubai today) and people really believed in their country.
Brilliant! I just forwarded this to family too. A treasured piece of film! It looks such an exotic place to be…and clean…with pavements to walk on. Thanks for sharing!
Kuwait still looks the same nowadays (wish it would stay like that) but with ugly new plastic cars that all look the same, you can hardly tell one from another.
And make sure to play this as your background music while you watch that awesome vintage video (don’t ask why):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SiylvmFI_8