AL-SHALCHI: Just next door, 40-year-old Alaa Sloojee fixes a stand of purses he's selling in his shop. His face glows with a wide smile. He says he feels relief that the old regime is gone.

AL-SHALCHI: Just next door, 40-year-old Alaa Sloojee fixes a stand of purses he's selling in his shop. His face glows with a wide smile. He says he feels relief that the old regime is gone.

A visit to the souk in the old city in the Syrian capital of Damascus tell us a lot about the state of the country's current economy. KUOW is Seattle’s NPR news station. We are an independent ...

The Sept. 26 front-page article on the gentrification of the part of Damascus known as the Old City said that its population began to drop in the 1950s.