My parents came here when they were very young. My father was 7 years old and my mother was 6 years old. My mother was born in Anatolia in 1870. There had been a war in their homeland. The Circassians helped the Turks in the war against Russia, but they lost. Then they had to leave these conquered places. My parents used to tell me about their first impression of Damascus in Marjeh. It was a vast green meadow. The oxcarts all stopped there and formed circles. Inside the carts, 15–20 families were squeezed in. They rested in Damascus for 10–15 days and then they carried on to the Jaulan. Their journey had started back in Caucasia and from Abkhazia. Abkhazia is to the east of the Black Sea and there is Abazin beyond the mountains. They came by sea. 5 million people were moved. Of the 5 million only 500,000 arrived in Turkey [Anatolia]. 4.5 million people died on the way, some overland, some in the sea. Most of them drowned. Whole ships sank. Only a half million made it to Turkey. Some people chose to stay in Turkey. Some of our relatives stayed there. Others chose to come to ‘Sham Al-Sharif’. Most people stayed in Turkey. Only some 20 per cent carried on and came here. Our ox-carts all passed through Aleppo, Homs, Damascus, Jaulan and then dropped down into Jordan, a few families stopping here and there. The Turks dispersed us in different places to protect various locations. […]