For much of her life, Sumaya Ainaya spent weekend and summer nights on Mount Qasioun, which overlooks the city of Damascus, joined by other Syrians drinking coffee, smoking hookah and eating corn on the cob roasted on grills nearby.
But soon after the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, the military under President Bashar al-Assad closed the mountain to civilians. Suddenly, instead of families and friends shooting fireworks into the sky, soldiers with tanks and artillery launchers were firing at rebel-held areas below.
This New Year’s Eve, weeks after a coalition of rebels ousted the Syrian regime, Ms. Ainaya, 56, and her family returned to Mount Qasioun with snacks, soda and scarves to protect from the winter chill — and reclaimed a favorite leisure spot.
“Thank God, we’ve returned now — we feel like we can breathe again,” said Ms. Ainaya, an Arabic literature graduate and a mother of four, standing along a ridge and pointing out several Damascus landmarks.
“We feel like the city has returned to us,” said her son Muhammad Qatafani, 21, a dental student.
Across Damascus, as in much of the country, Syrians are reclaiming, and in some cases embracing anew, spaces and freedoms that had been off limits for years under the Assad regime. There were places ordinary Syrians were not allowed to go and things that they were not permitted to say when the Assad family was in power. The country, many said, increasingly felt as if it did not belong to them.
But with the newfound sense of freedom comes some trepidation about the future under a government formed by Islamist rebels, and whether with time it might institute new restrictions and limitations.
Many Syrians are watching each decision and announcement as a harbinger of how their new rulers may govern. Last week, Syria’s de facto new leader, Ahmed al-Shara, said it could take two to three years to draft a new Constitution and up to four years to hold elections, alarming Syrians who fear they may have traded one authoritarian leader for another.
For now, there is also a level of chaos under the interim government as it races to prioritize certain state-building measures over others. With many economic restrictions and regulations gone, men and boys sell smuggled gas from large water jugs on street corners. The city’s traffic is snarled, as few police officers are on patrol, and double parking is rife, residents said.
Despite the anxiety, people are returning to or rediscovering spaces across Damascus, the capital. Protest songs that could have landed someone in prison a month ago can be heard on the street.
“We weren’t seeing the city, Damascus, or any city, in all its details,” Yaman Alsabek, a youth group leader, said of his country under the Assad regime. “The public spaces — we stopped going to them because we felt they weren’t for us, they were for the regime.”
His organization, Sanad Team for Development, has begun to organize youth efforts to help clean the streets and direct traffic. “When Damascus was liberated and we felt this renewed sense of ownership, people came out to rediscover their city,” he said.
After last month’s stunning sweep by the rebels, icons of the Assad regime were torn down. Children play on the pedestals and plinths that once held towering statues of Mr. al-Assad, his father and his brother. Murals cover spaces where pro-regime slogans were emblazoned.
On a recent gray and drizzly day, it was standing room only in the auditorium that had been the headquarters of the ruling Baath party, which represented the Assad family’s totalitarian grip on political discourse. Hundreds of people gathered to hear a Syrian actress and activist, Yara Sabri, speak about the country’s thousands of detained and missing prisoners.
“We all decide on what it will look like and what we want it to be,” Ms. Sabri said of the country’s future.
Weeks ago, she had been in exile because of her activism. Now, a Syrian flag, with its new colors, hung over the lectern at which she spoke. Above the building’s entrance, the old Syrian flag and the Baath party flag were partly painted over.
Salma Huneidi, the event’s organizer, said the choice of venue was deliberate. “We consider this a victory,” she said. “This was a place that we couldn’t do any activities, and now we are not only holding activities, but important ones that expose the previous regime.”
An event to discuss the writing of a new Syrian Constitution was also held in the building recently.
“Syria feels bigger, the streets feel bigger — gone are the images that used to irritate us, the slogans that used to irritate us,” Ms. Huneidi said. “We used to feel so restricted before.”
Even the utterance of the word “dollar” could land someone in prison under Mr. al-Assad. Foreign-currency exchanges, which were banned for years under the Assad regime, have sprung up seemingly everywhere. Men walk through markets yelling: “Exchange! Exchange!” A seller hawking warm winter porridge offered stacks of Syrian pounds in exchange for crisp $100 bills.
Mohammad Murad, 33, sat in his car on a street corner, wearing a beanie with the colors of the new Syrian flag. A sign in his window said, “Dollars, euros and Turkish.”
Mr. Murad had long worked in currency exchange, but after the previous regime banned foreign currencies, his business went underground. If a customer needed dollars or euros, Mr. Murad said, he would go to the person’s house, bills hidden inside a sock.
In the new Syria, he said, he stands in line at the central bank to exchange $1,000 for stacks of Syrian pounds. When potential patrons come to his window to inquire about the exchange rate, he assures them he is offering the “best price.”
Across the street, the shelves of a small corner store look very different from only a few weeks ago, when shop owners had to smuggle foreign brands and hide them from most customers.
“I would only sell those brands to my regular customers that knew I sold smuggled goods, not to just anyone coming in,” said the owner, Hussam al-Shareef.
Syrian-made products now mingle openly with brands from Turkey, Europe and the United States. Customers walk in and freely ask for “Nescafe, the original.”
Three years ago, a police officer came into his shop and saw six Kinder chocolate eggs in a glass case in the back. Mr. al-Shareef was fined 600,000 Syrian pounds, or roughly $50, and sentenced to a month in jail. He has been fighting it in court ever since.
Back on Mount Qasioun, a man was peddling illegal fireworks smuggled from Lebanon. Hours later, they would light up the sky to ring in 2025.
Ali Maadi, 35, was busy setting up a stand to sell drinks, snacks and hookahs. Before the war, his family had a small but comfortable rest area along the mountain’s ridge. When he returned more than a week ago, he found that Syrian Army soldiers had used it as an outpost and had broken everything, including the bathrooms. He plans to slowly rebuild.
From two speakers in the back of his Peugeot, he was blasting a mix of Syrian protest and folk songs. The lyrics of one song said:
We want to adore, we want to love
We want to walk the path
We want to learn to be men and love Damascus
From our hearts and see Damascus up close.
Nearby, Aya Kalas, 28, and her soon-to-be fiancé, Khalid al-Qadi, 26, sat at a picnic table enjoying the view. She was 15 the last time she came to the mountain, she said.
“Any place you were banned from, you want to come back to it,” said Ms. Kalas, a beautician.
Damascus, where Ms. Kalas has lived her entire life, feels unrecognizable at times, she said. “There were entire streets you couldn’t walk along because a military officer or official lived there,” she said.
“We feel like seeing the country anew; we feel like tourists,” Mr. al-Qadi said. “It feels like it’s ours again.”
Zeina Shahla contributed reporting.
