Bourj Hammoud (Greater Beirut) | district, ethnic

 district, ethnic

Bourj Hammoud was settled 200 years ago in Ottoman Lebanon. Located 1km East of the capital Beyrouth. Area: 2.4km square. Bourj Hammoud was the site where thousands of Armenian refugees settled in after 1921, they were the survivors of the Genocide by World War I Ottoman Turks. In 1965, Bourj Hammoud was 92% Armenian-populated . The city is considered as one of the most important shopping centers in Lebanon. It is an artisan center of hand-made craftsmanship and industrial art such as goldsmithing, silversmithing and Jewelry-making; Leather goods, bags & garments. Bourj Hamoud is divided into seven major regions: 1.Dora 2.Sader 3.Naher Beirut 4. Anbari (Shell region today) 5.Mar Doumet 6.Nabaa 7.Gheilan. The Western District of Bourj Hammoud, Naher Beyrouth south to Sinn-el-Fil Sikkat al Hadid area is divided into the neighbourhoods of DEMCO- Qarantina, Nor Marache, Nor Sis, Amanos, Nor Adana and Tchar-Tchabuq.
Today known as "The City of Life" was exhausted Armenians who had survived the death marches in Deir ez-Zor (Syria) arrived in Beirut after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, they were given the right to construct shacks on the eastern banks of the Beirut River that was at the time swamps and marshy lands. They were then allowed to erect houses and buildings which stand to this day. In 1952, Bourj Hammoud became an independent municipality and is currently a member of the Metn-North group of municipalities.
The founding father of Bourj Hammoud and its municipality was the Armenian Catholic Father Paul Ariss (Arabic: الأب بول عريس‎; Armenian: Հայր Պօղոս Արիս) who was instrumental in laying the foundations of a bustling city and center for the Lebanese Armenian community and served a long time as its mayor. The municipality named a main street in Bourj Hammoud in his name in acknowledgement of his sizable contributions to the establishment and development of the city.
During its founding and early settlement, Bourj Hammoud was also the focus of a rivalry between two Armenian political parties, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, who struggled to control the newly established shanty-town. This led to various altercations and assassinations that gripped the Armenian community of Lebanon. This was climaxed during the Lebanon crisis of 1958, around the time where the two parties and their supporters became polarized due to a religious dispute over which catholicos would be the leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church. However, in the midst of increasing sectarian strife in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Lebanon's Armenian community began to close ranks, and in 1972, the Hunchakian Party ran a joint ticket with the Dashnaks.