Cairo then and now: on nostalgia

Nostalgia for a time I've never lived

Dec 16, 2024

I recently discovered a collection of photographs that made me feel nostalgic. A feeling of nostalgia for a time I’ve never experienced. The photos are of Cairo, and Egypt, in the early and mid 1900s.

I wonder what Cairo was like back then. The photos seem calm and organized. Was it so? Or maybe it’s just me romanticizing the “good old days”. After all, I’m sure I can curate a particular set of images of Cairo today and make it look calm and organized (which in case you haven’t been, is not).

Rosy retrospection is the psychological phenomenon of recalling the past more positively than it was actually experienced. I think we tend to remember more of the good and less of the bad and that makes our memories of the past more rosy.

This quote by French writer Marcel Pagnol explains it nicely:

The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.

Just a few days ago, my barber in Barcelona, in typical haircut conversation, was complaining about how the city has been getting worse and worse for the past 20 years.

Anyway, since I just came back from Cairo myself, I thought I’d share a few photos from the early 1900s as well as my own from nowadays. Some of the photos are actually of the same place. I discovered the old photos from two sources: a Facebook page called Monarchy and Dynasty, to celebrate the monarchy days I suppose, and a website by Max Karkégi who was a love of Egypt and archived old photos, illustrations, and documents from Egyptian the bygone days.

I only discovered the old photos after I left Cairo but maybe next time I can try to recreate the same angles.

The 10 photos below are from the Monarchy & Dynasty page