On May 29, 2015, Megawra sponsored a city walk through Shubra (See: Shubra, Off the Beaten Path) , a district of Cairo to the north and east of the railroad station: skirting Ahmad Helmi Street to the east; to the west, the Nile Corniche; to the north, the Delta by way of the Cairo-Alexandria Agricultural Road. 
During the walk, our group was allowed to enter a five-storey apartment building that is known in the neighborhood as House of Foreigners. When asked why the apartment house was known as such, our guide said because the family who had built the building and lived there for generations were all Italians. That explanation is all we had…until now! Read on…
House of Foreigners
On March 13, 2020, I received a post from Rolando Mazzone who wrote:
Read on…
House of Foreigners
I immediately responded to Mr. Mazzone’s comment and he kindly sent me the history of his family who lived in this house for three generations. Mr. Mazzone has given me permission to publish his family history.
My grandfather [Egizio Testaferrata] was Maltese of Italian culture and he spoke, at home, Italian and Maltese which is a mixture of southern Italian and Arabic. His father Nicola came to Egypt in the 1860ies from Malta and was a designer and engraver, educated in Naples, Italy. Nicola worked for the Egyptian government engraving coins and in the embellishment of public buildings ( e.g. the Cairo Opera in Midan Mohammad Ali).
My grandfather worked at the Naafi which was a British organisation supplying food to the military. He died in 1947. He had five children and had adopted a niece who had lost her parents. He lived at the first floor which consisted of a very big apartment. The two apartments at the second floor were occupied by other family members, as brothers in law and later married daughters.
My parents moved to one of the two smaller apartments in 1946. My father Luigi Mazzone had married one of the daughters of my grandfather, Vittoria. My father was Italian, born in Egypt in 1915 and died in Rome in 2009. His father Vincenzo came to Egypt from Sicily as a teenager in the beginning of the 1900ie and worked as a cabinetmaker, first in Alexandria and then in Cairo.
He built up a big business in Bulaq where he had a sawmill and a furniture factory working for the Egyptian government (Cairo Museum, Cairo University, doors, windows and wooden stairs of many famous buildings, including the Yacoubian building). Vincenzo died very young in 1934 and his business continued until 1940, where it was sequestrated by the authorities due to Italy entering World War 2.
My family didn’t restart the business after the war.
My father’s mother Eugenia Vescia belonged to the Vescia family which came to Egypt in the 1850ies as olive merchants. She lived in the house in Shoubra from 1940 until her death in 1953.
The second apartment at the second floor had been occupied by my father’s brother Francesco from 1946 to 1970. He had a hardware-shop in Ezbekiah in Cairo.
The architect of the house was Greek and he was a friend of my grandfathers, his name was Galligopoulo and there was an engraving on the Eastern side of the house with his name and the building year.
After the death of my grandfather the house was owned by my grandmother, which was Serbian and had British nationality, having been married to a Maltese.
The house was sequestrated by the Egyptian authorities, following the Suez War in 1956. My grandmother was refunded by the British authorities for her loss.
I hope that you can use some of this information about a house which for many years was full of life and the center of many happy events.
I would like to express my own and my whole family’s gratitude and best feelings for Egypt and the Egyptian people.
The district of Shubra is one of the most densely populated parts of Cairo with approximately four million people. Once upon a time, Shubra was a small village; the word, Shubra, actually means ‘small village’ from the Coptic word, ϭⲱⲡⲣⲟ Šopro. (Wikipedia) Shubra remained primarily agricultural until Muhammad Ali Pasha built his palace there in 1808. He also constructed a boulevard one hundred feet wide, lined with trees from his palace to el-Azbakiya. Following the example of Muhammed Ali Pasha, other members of the royal family and the upper class built villas and summer residences at Shubra. In 1903, a tramline was built on the grand boulevard, and this area opened up to urban development. One of the houses that was built during the development of this district was the House of Foreigners.
EPILOGUE – received on March 17, 2020
All Photographs and text are under international copyright laws. No re-use without the written permission of Lesley Lababidi 2023.
nomad4now 
Thank you, Lesley, for this remarkable piece.
I really appreciate your comment! Always good to hear from you. L.
Fascinating!
I have no comments to the text. I would like to add that the house has more stores than originally. Until the 1960ies, the house consisted of an unoccupied basement (regularly under water when the level of the Nile was high), the first floor with a very large apartment, the second floor with two smaller apartments and the third floor consisting of a terrace used mainly for sun-drying the washing, a washing room and two small storing rooms.
The garden had various fruit trees: mango, guava, lemon, orange, clementine and grapes.
In the 1930ies, when the house was built, the northern part of Shoubra was not heavily urbanized. It was called Shoubra Gardens (Hadayek Shoubra).
I could go on with more details from my own and my parents’ memories.
We felt fully integrated in our quarter, had our schools close by ( St. Joseph Carmelites French School in Sharah Rostom, where my mother and her sister Wally went for many years and my brother and I went to the kindergarten. The Don Bosco Institute in Rod el Farag where I got my Italian leaving-school certificate in 1961. The pre-wwII “28 Ottobre” Italian State school close to Santa Teresa where several of my uncles went; the buildings were sequestrated during wwII and used as an Egyptian University after the war.)
I would like to stress that my whole family and I have never experienced unfriendly attittude from our fellow Shoubra and whole Egypt inhabitants.
It has been a great pleasure to get in contact with you. Feel free to contact me if you have any question. I will be delighted to assist you.
Best wishes
Rolando Mazzone
Thank you so much for this. I have included a screen shot in the post. I really appreciate that you reached out and let people know your history! I believe AUC Press put it on their twitter and many people are sharing the information. Thank you , Lesley
Hello Rolando,
It is such a great coincidence that you found Leslie’s post. I was one of the organizers of the tour, and my grand parents (& my mother and my aunts & uncle) lived in the house opposite to your house. Do you have recollection of your neighbors? My mother was born 1944 so I presume you both lived there at the same time.
Dear Alia, Thank you for this comment to Rolando. I will send it also to his email account. Thank you for the information about the date of your grandfather’s building. L.
I was born in 1944 too, so I lived close to your mother’s family for 17 years. We had many neighbours at the four sides of the house, so it is hard to place your family in my memories. I am very impressed by your and Lesley’s activity in describing some aspects of the history of my native Cairo.
Best regards
Rolando
Dear Lesley, what a fantastic post! What a satisfaction must it be to be able to bring a piece of the past to life. This piece brought me almost to tears, such is the love (yes, I think I can say that) I have for this unbelievable city. Reading it brought me back to my Friday’s solitary early mornings walks admiring and photographing the buildings of Downtown Cairo (I wish I had your book back then). The emotions I proved are still with me, now, thanks to you and the remarkable Mr. Mazzone’s family history that I am very grateful he agreed to share with us all. Grazie di cuore!
Oh Stefano! You don’t know how incredible your comment makes me feel. Thank you so much and because of your Italian background and your longtime in Cairo, I could feel the emotion. I am very grateful that you shared this with me and my readers. Thank you so much, Lesley
i think i might have a box of photos /postcards of the raimondi family when they were in egypt many years ago – unfortunately i cannot get hold of them at the moment as i am in the uk and do not know when travel will be allowed -i have had them for a long time
Do you have their contact to let them know? L
Dear Jean,
Thanks for your message. Unfortunately I do not think I am related to that family. I lived in Egypt recently, from 2006 to 2011. My grandparents from my father side lived in what is now Eritrea, where my father was born and spent the first 16 years of his life, till the mid fifties. Though I never had the opportunity to find out how they reached Eritrea from Italy, they have never mentioned having lived in Egypt. Will try to find through the family grapevine if they know of anyone who lived in Cairo. Best, Stefano
thank you -maybe the name is more common than i think -as soon as i return i will look more closely and check on addresses etc
i have found a postcard addressed to mr jean raimondi POB 534 cairo egypt
posted from the british empire exhibition sep 20 1924 on a postcard from the exhibition
the message is not in english – and i do not recognize the language and i cannot scan it and send it to you
i do not have the photos with me in the uk -and so have no information here -it will have to wait until i can return to cairo
I was born in Shubra, Immeuble Garabedian, second floor, off the main Shubra street No. 45. I was born in 1941. In that building lived a number of related families of Italian, and Yugoslav nationality. Eventually, soon after the burning of Cairo, Saturday, 26 January 1952, one by one and two by twos, we all left Egypt for a safer place with a future. My father was born in Faggalah, Cairo in 1913 and went to school at the French St Joseph college (Khoronfish), Collège des Fréres. My mother was also born in Cairo, probably in Shubra as well. I blame the military coup of Nasser & Co. for the demise and scattering of my extended family that once upon a time considered Egypt their home.
Oh thank you for your family history! May I put it in the article. Possibly it would be interesting to see if we could collect stories of Europeans who lived in Egypt in the 19th and 20th century that remember where they lived and maybe a story of so about growing up and living there. May I post your comments in the article? Lesley
Yes, my comments can be posted in your article. I have settled in Australia where I have arrived from Egypt in 1963 with my parents. My Armenian grandparents also joined us in Australia a year later. Happy Sham el Nessim, but be careful with the Coronavirus, especially in Egypt.
Thank you so much for your comment. I suggested putting it in the article as people often don’t read the comments. Your comment is important. However, if I begin an article (on my blog) asking people to contribute, may I use your comment? So far so good in Cairo for me, family, and friends. We are all staying inside except for grocery shopping. Thank you for your concern. L.
Hello Richard, I hope you are well. I have posted your comments on a new post. https://nomad4now.com/2020/04/14/shubra-revisited/
If you disagree, please let me know. Lesley
Yes, you can use my comments.
Thank you!