YemenMap
May A remarkable country. ![]() Everyone has their mouth stuffed full of khat leaves all day long. Khat’s effect is similar to that of betel (which is consumed in Bhutan, India, and Taiwan), only it colors the mouth green instead of red. It’s sold everywhere here. ![]() Almost all the men in the country wear traditional dress, an indispensable attribute of which is a knife in a curved sheath. ![]() The essential footwear is sandals. The essential outer garment is a jacket. A Western suit jacket. ![]() The women all wear veils that cover their entire face. ![]() Even the janitors at the airport. ![]() Neighboring countries like to give Yemenis gifts of stuffed ferrets being strangled by a snake whose head is already clasped firmly in the ferret’s jaws. A three-dimensional incarnation of the “Never Give Up!” office poster. Practically every museum has one. ![]() For a long time, the USSR was friends with South Yemen. The friendship eventually ended, Chinese trucks won out over Soviet ones. But some details remain quite recognizable to the Russian eye. The cakes in the display case at an upscale hotel, for instance. ![]() The country’s main museum has a coin exhibit. The coins are arranged between filed-down magnifying glasses sloppily glued onto upside-down Czech champagne flutes. ![]() The three main holidays—May 22, September 26, October 14—can be promoted with just numbers. ![]() Sometimes it feels as though Yemen is still stuck in the fifteenth century. Half the nation is perfectly content to live in stone structures like these ones. ![]() Why change anything when things are comfy just the way they are? ![]() The items sold at the bazaar certainly haven’t changed in many centuries. ![]() The crowning achievement of civilization—an ATM on wheels that drives to where it’s needed—can be spotted around the city. ![]() Meanwhile, outside the city, enterprising individuals gather up salt that has spilled from a crashed truck. ![]() The city has some trash cans. I witnessed an amazing sight: sanitation workers were sorting garbage right in the back of the truck as it was driving from one collection stop to another. ![]() Rural towns have no trash cans, however. The only thing that hints at the fact that we’re in the 21st century is the pile of discarded shoes. This is something that was completely unimaginable just a hundred years ago. ![]() Postal service was set up here only recently. The post boxes (written-off ones from Germany, I think) are hung above adult height level so that kids can’t throw matches and other crap in them. ![]() Security guard booths are painted to match the national flag—this is trendy in Arab countries. It lends the booths an aura of national importance. ![]() In order to read and write words on walls, one needs to be literate. Political advertising has come to play the role of graffiti here. The horse represents the president’s party, the sun—the Islamist one. ![]() The robot-like electrical boxes on the capital’s streets look completely surreal. ![]() Around the corner, someone is considerately adjusting the blanket for a legless man lying in a wheelbarrow. ![]() Men playing dominoes. ![]() A policeman praises a family for buckling up. ![]() Traffic lights weren’t deemed useful enough to be kept functioning everywhere. ![]() Motorcycles rarely have just one person on them. ![]() Private vehicles are outnumbered by taxis, whose fenders are painted yellow. ![]() Street vending takes place at every level, starting from the ground. ![]() An annoying boom box keeps shouting out, “Everything for a hundred! Everything for a hundred!” ![]() Everyone at the market knows that the best vegetable oil is made by a camel turning a millstone in a dark, cramped nook. ![]() Cooking and eating at restaurants and cafeterias is a prerogative reserved for men. But every establishment has a so-called “family room,” where men can eat with their wives. ![]() A meal must always begin with the laying down of a plastic tablecloth. These tablecloths later end up brightly decorating the roads, ravines, and deserts. ![]() Everything is eaten with the hands. Meat, rice, vegetables—everything. The tea is always very strong and very sweet no matter where you go. ![]() Those who aren’t used to uncomfortable tables can eat the traditional, tasty way—on the floor. Yemeni men always pick their teeth with their fingers after a meal. I can’t testify to the habits of the women. ![]() For some reason, all the gas stations have very tall canopy roofs. Perhaps quadruple-decker buses come to fuel up here? ![]()
The fate of the country’s Toyota pickup trucks is interesting. The models that are common here (the ![]() The architectural style (there’s just one here) allows for ornamental grilles to be put into the facade completely at random. The important thing is that the grilles must be white and situated over the windows wherever they exist. ![]() This is how the styles of entire cities are created. Another notable feature is the height of the buildings. These are considered skyscrapers here. ![]() This is what a Yemeni settlement looked like 400 years ago: ![]() And this is what one looks like today: ![]() The local version of gypsies. ![]() Girls with chickens. ![]() A shepherd. ![]() A woman with a tub. ![]() A shopkeeper. ![]() A remarkable country. ![]() |
© 19952025 Artemy Lebedev |