Anyone traveling from Cairo International Airport to the city center can see on their way in the Heliopolis area a beautiful, but somewhat strange building with a huge territory surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and does not fit into the Cairo landscape. It is carefully guarded by the police, but it looks abandoned and uninhabited. The empty dark eye sockets of the windows of the building frighten visitors and local residents, who for many years have been telling the most incredible and even chilling legends about it.
This building, better known today as the "Baron's Castle", was built more than a hundred years ago by order of the Belgian baron and prominent businessman Edouard Empain. It unusually stands out from the luxurious Arab and laconic European villas of Heliopolis with its special architecture and detached location, and evokes conflicting feelings of openness, oblivion and mystery.
The modern authorities of Egypt, after several unsuccessful attempts, nevertheless found funds for this unique structure and decided to restore the castle and return it to the role of the pearl of Heliopolis and all of Cairo.
The house that the baron built
It was Baron Empain, who at the beginning of the 20th century had already participated in the construction of the Parisian metro, who was commissioned to build a new fashionable district in the suburbs of historic Cairo, which was named Heliopolis - "City of the Sun".
The suburb was built: light and airy, with European-style wide and straight streets and green villas and bungalows. To build his own house in Heliopolis, Baron Empaine hired prominent French architects of the time: Alexander Marcel and Georges Louis Claude. However, the owner clearly drew inspiration from another part of the world - in Cambodia and India. “The Baron was sympathetic to Buddhists. Therefore, the walls of the castle are decorated with bas-reliefs depicting the deities of the Hindu pantheon - Buddha, Sheva and Brahma,”said Abdel Rahim Rihan, an expert on antiquities, director of the Egyptian Center for Antiquity Research and Enlightenment, to RIA Novosti.
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Indeed, the castle is more reminiscent of a Buddhist temple than a residential building.
According to Rihan, there is information that the baron, while on business in India, fell seriously ill, and was only able to recover thanks to Indian folk healers. In gratitude to his saviors, he allegedly later erected this castle in the Egyptian capital.
The structure was designed in such a way that during the daytime sunlight would enter all living quarters. “But many in all seriousness told that part of the castle revolves on its axis, following the sun,” the expert laughs.
The castle erected by a successful baron did not bring him personal happiness. In the house, his daughter died tragically as a result of an accident, and according to some sources, his own sister also died there.
The baron himself died in his homeland in Belgium, but, according to his will, he was buried in Egypt in the church he founded in Heliopolis, located not far from the castle.
Satanists and ghosts
As one of the indigenous inhabitants of Heliopolis told RIA Novosti, an incredible story was discussed in the Egyptian media in the late 90s: it turned out that the abandoned castle of the baron was chosen by Egyptian Satanists, who performed their terrible rituals in it at night. It was even rumored that a ritual murder was committed in the building and the Egyptian police were investigating the "case of Satan." “For Egypt, with the overwhelming majority of believers - Muslims and Christians - this news was outrageous. Residents wrote complaints, we wanted to be protected from all this. Then there was an increased security around the castle, now you can't get there so easily,”said a local resident.
And here is what the popular Egyptian edition “Al-Ahram” wrote about the castle: “The most incredible rumors circulated among the inhabitants of the neighboring houses: a tower that revolves on its axis, following the sun; a long underground tunnel that connects the castle with a Christian temple in another area of the city; walls that bleed, grieving for the deceased sister and daughter of the owner of the castle, or perhaps for the spirit of the girl who allegedly committed suicide here. And the ghosts, which, according to the stories, live in the castle, did terrify the surroundings."
Egyptian Horror, Flying Things and Depression
Recently, the castle became the backdrop for the first Egyptian horror - "Forbidden Zone". As the film's assistant director and screenwriter Adil Abdel Razzak recalls, during the filming, strange things happened on the set, and after the completion of the work, the entire film crew fell into an inexplicable depression.
“During filming, strange things happened in the castle, but maybe this always happens when you come to a long abandoned house. But we did not discount all the stories that told about its unusual inhabitants. For example, while we were working, we left our bags in one room, and the shooting took place in another. And when they returned for the bags, they did not find them at the place where they left them. For some unknown reason, they ended up in a room one floor below. At the same time, we had a small film crew and everyone was constantly in sight,”he said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
According to Abdel Razzak, later, during the editing of the sound, incomprehensible sounds were found on the recording. “The specialists we contacted could not determine what these sounds were and what their origin was,” the agency's interlocutor explained.
He also added that after working at the castle, “many of the film crew fell into an inexplicable depression, probably due to the negative energy in this building. But we managed to cope with it and return people to normal life."
The assistant director added that the feeling of the mystical events taking place in the castle is enhanced by its abandonment and long-term oblivion: “This is a unique castle that has absorbed a variety of cultures. In addition, many very strange things are told about it, exciting stories about its inhabitants. We all love such unusual stories related to the other world. Of course, some of these stories are legends, but there are also quite true ones."
“The inside of the castle is simple enough. Although the decoration reflects all the passions of the baron, who traveled a lot. Here, both Indian sculpture and French style can be seen. But the problem is that it has been abandoned for many decades, no restoration work has been carried out,”concluded Abdel Razzak.
New point on the tourist map of Cairo
Despite the neglect, the baron's castle attracts the attention of not only horror fans. The inexplicable craving for the castle in recent years has been shared by Arab music stars, who consider it a great success to organize a concert against the backdrop of this mystical building. Almost all the most famous Egyptian and Arab pop idols have performed in the park adjacent to the castle, which should have scared off most of the ghosts living in the castle with music.
The Egyptian Ministry of Culture does not believe in ghosts either and promises to restore the castle for 114 million Egyptian pounds (about 6.5 million US dollars) and in a year and a half. “The goal of the project is to restore the castle, preserving the architecture of this unique building, its monuments and the surrounding area,” antiquities expert Abdel Rahim Rihan told RIA Novosti. In his opinion, after the restoration, the baron's castle may well become a new point on the tourist map of Cairo and help to attract tourists from India and other countries of the Asian region and the whole world.
In anticipation of the completion of the restoration work, three investment companies have already submitted their proposals for the use of the castle and the surrounding area. These proposals are currently being studied by the Ministry of Antiquities, which will determine the future fate of the castle of Baron Empain.
Nadim Zuaoui, Margarita Kislova
