"In Vancouver Review: Taqunya In Kabul - The People, Coming From The Shadows."

The start of a lengthy post by Terry Glavin that also deals with the situation of women in Afstan:

There are seven gates that lead into the narrow and winding passageways of the Murad Khane, the 18th-century walled quarter within the old city of Kabul. It is hidden away inside a hive of narrow streets and alleys bustling with fruit and vegetable sellers, blacksmiths, silversmiths, and jewelers holding aloft glistening strands of lapis lazuli. There are naan bakers and gem cutters, potters and leathermakers, seamstresses, tailors, almond hawkers and spice merchants. There’s one long and winding alleyway taken up entirely by peddlers selling caged songbirds.

Down the Murad Khane’s busy flagstone passageways you will still find old, richly filigreed window frames, door screens and facades in the Nuristani and Kabuli styles. There are still “hammams,” the old domed-roof bath houses, and relics of ornate Simgili plasterwork in walls that surround cool and quiet courtyards. Some of the old houses still tilt and groan against elaborately-carved Kandankari verandah posts, and there are still faint echoes of the grand Mughal style in the great serai, the central gathering place.

Not for nothing was Kabul once called the Paris of the East...