From the outside, the shape of the Hneineh Palace is relatively unadorned. (Credit: Photo provided by Camille Tarazi)
The history of the Hneineh Palace, located in the Zokak al-Blat neighborhood of Beirut, has long remained unclear.It was said that this building, with decor inspired by the Alhambra and the architecture of Mamluk Egypt, was erected toward the end of 1860 or 1870 by a Russian nobleman who lived there until his death.For a long time, no concrete information was available about the man. In the 1990s, German urban planning and Islamic art history specialist Ralph Bodenstein came across a series of albumen print photos in the Tarazi family archives depicting the palace's grand Moorish hall. The photographs carried a caption mentioning the "Maison Todorsshi in Beirut," later reinterpreted as "Maison Podorsshi in Beirut."In 2011, Camille Tarazi discovered, through old postcards, that the Russian's name was Podhorski....
The history of the Hneineh Palace, located in the Zokak al-Blat neighborhood of Beirut, has long remained unclear.It was said that this building, with decor inspired by the Alhambra and the architecture of Mamluk Egypt, was erected toward the end of 1860 or 1870 by a Russian nobleman who lived there until his death.For a long time, no concrete information was available about the man. In the 1990s, German urban planning and Islamic art history specialist Ralph Bodenstein came across a series of albumen print photos in the Tarazi family archives depicting the palace's grand Moorish hall. The photographs carried a caption mentioning the "Maison Todorsshi in Beirut," later reinterpreted as "Maison Podorsshi in Beirut."In 2011, Camille Tarazi discovered, through old postcards, that the Russian's name was...
