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The old part of the city of Zanzibar, capital of the island of the same name. Before European colonization, it was the center of trade between the coasts of Africa and Asia. Under the ruler Sayyid ibn Sultan from 1840 to 1956, it was the capital of the so-called Omani Empire. Stone City – a tangle of narrow streets, where you can not pass even a small car, mosques, bazaars and houses with wooden porches.
Zanzibar has always been the center of fishing, shipping and trade
That is why the fishing village here was once beloved by the Arab slave traders, who exported the living goods from Africa, and became their transshipment base and concentration camp. Here slaves, transported in small batches from the mainland, were loaded onto large ships and sent to distant countries.
The settlement grew and stone buildings appeared: a fort, houses of rich merchants, mosques. Then Zanzibar was colonized by Portugal, and for two centuries, Stone Town grew already under the leadership of Europeans. But by the end of the 17th century, they again began to actively oust the Arabs, and gradually over Zanzibar established the rule of the Sultanate of Oman, and later a separate one – Zanzibar.
The architecture of the old city shows the influence of colonial Britain
In the mid-19th century, Zanzibar became the capital and residence of the Sultan. At the same time came the creation of large plantations of spices. The spice trade became a big economic hardship for the sultanate and brought in a handsome profit. The city of Zanzibar, therefore, expanded rapidly.
Then in 1890 a British protectorate was imposed over it, which was only lifted in 1964. Around that time they began to call the old Zanzibar Stone Town, because unlike the local villages, it had many stone buildings.
The narrow, tangled streets that protect pedestrians from the heat, the elegant oriental windows and balconies, the distinctive Arabic-style doors, each a work of art, the light verandas… and no public transportation, are typical of ancient Arab towns.
