Welcome to Millions Street, where thriving market offers traders a slice of Al Dhafra Festival fortune


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For three weeks a year, Millions Street shines.

The gatch road is the centre of the Al Dhafra Festival, which attracts 24,000 camel beauty queens competing for Dh52 million in pageantry prize money.

Where there are camels, there is wealth. So entrepreneurs come for their share of the millions exchanged between camel traders from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait during the festival.

As the festival begins, the dirt road the camel superstars stride down to the judging pen transforms into an open-air market of tents, caravans and food trucks catering to every need of man and beast.

Stars in the inky desert sky are obscured by garlands of colourful lights and neon signboards advertising launderettes, restaurants, groceries, cafes, and tobacco shops.

The duneside market is a microcosm of Madinat Zayed, the nearby Bedouin city of 29,000 inhabitants that empties during the festival as families flock set up camp at the event.

Most Million Street businesses are pop-ups of permanent shops in Madinat Zayed.

“Right now there’s no one in Madinat Zayed,” said Ahmed Etisham, a laundryman from Delhi who works from a tent on Millions Street. “So we come here.”

There are baqala corner shops offering the usual assortment of bug spray, biscuits, detergent, matchboxes, tinned milk, crisps, energy drinks, Uno playing cards and even two litre tubs of camel shampoo.

“We have everything,” said Faisal Malik, a clerk at a tented baqala.

Well, almost everything.

An SUV pulled up and a passenger asked for cough drops.

“Do you have any Vicks?” he asked.

“No Vicks,” said Mr Malik. “Try that one.” He pointed to a rival baqala across the road.

There are four launderettes in one dusty cul-de-sac: Moonlight, Habiba, Gentle and Red Robe.

Presentation and reputation are all important for the festival’s camel traders and a clean, pressed kandura is essential.

At Red Robe Laundry, Mr Etisham presses 50 kandoras a day, averaging Dh500 in daily sales. He has worked at the festival for six seasons.

“Laundry’s here and money’s available, so why not clean it?” said Mohammed Al Mazrouei, 45, a customer from Riyadh handing over his kandura to Mr Etisham.

Hospitality, too, is paramount and businesses know this.

Unexpected guests at the camp?

Mohammed Shaddad, from Bangladesh, runs one of two tobacco shops on Millions Street at the Al Dhafra Festival. Victor Besa / The National
Mohammed Shaddad, from Bangladesh, runs one of two tobacco shops on Millions Street at the Al Dhafra Festival. Victor Besa / The National

Mohammed Abdullah is prepared. The second-generation restaurateur sells takeaway platters of mandi, a rice and meat dish, from his Yemeni restaurant, Eye of the Gulf Restaurant and Kitchen.

Mr Abdulla’s father opened the first mandi restaurant in the small Saudi-UAE border town of Sila in 1999. There was little else in Sila and that was the point. A restaurant should open where people are on the move, he reasoned.

“If people are on the road, they’ll eat more than in the city,” said Mr Abdulla. “The city has houses and people eat in the home. But on the road, they’ve still got to eat.”

Mr Abdulla learnt from his father and opened a pop-up branch from a trailer at the camel festival in 2017.

Other entrepreneurs profit from cold desert nights. Nizamuddin Saluddin, 45, averages Dh500 a night selling nothing but winter blankets from a roadside tent. He normally works at Abu Dhabi’s carpet souq by Mina Zayed. “As long as it’s cold, they sell,” he said.

The tent next to his is stocked with leather jackets from a shop on Abu Dhabi’s Electra Street. Another tent sells firewood. Others sells coffee pots and portable chimneys, for the fire pit is central to every camp at the festival.

There are Syrian shawarma cafes blasting music, an Egyptian bakery and tents offering home-cooked meals prepared by women in Madinat Zayed.

Businessman Hussein Keshveri had such success with a pop-up baqala in 2018 that he returned this year to open Jaguar Smoking Supplies, confident it would be one-of-a-kind at the festival. It is a tented replica of a shisha and midwakh pipe shop he opened 24 years ago in Madinat Zayed.

“There are supermarkets, gold jewellers, restaurants, everything was sold here,” said Mr Keshveri. “Except this. This is something new.”

A days later, a rival shisha shop opened in a tent across the road. Money at a camel festival moves quickly and business ideas do too.

Green ambitions
  • Trees: 1,500 to be planted, replacing 300 felled ones, with veteran oaks protected
  • Lake: Brown's centrepiece to be cleaned of silt that makes it as shallow as 2.5cm
  • Biodiversity: Bat cave to be added and habitats designed for kingfishers and little grebes
  • Flood risk: Longer grass, deeper lake, restored ponds and absorbent paths all meant to siphon off water 
THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick

Hometown: Cologne, Germany

Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)

Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes

Favourite hobby: Football

Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk

The 12 Syrian entities delisted by UK 

Ministry of Interior
Ministry of Defence
General Intelligence Directorate
Air Force Intelligence Agency
Political Security Directorate
Syrian National Security Bureau
Military Intelligence Directorate
Army Supply Bureau
General Organisation of Radio and TV
Al Watan newspaper
Cham Press TV
Sama TV

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Panipat

Director Ashutosh Gowariker

Produced Ashutosh Gowariker, Rohit Shelatkar, Reliance Entertainment

Cast Arjun Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Kriti Sanon, Mohnish Behl, Padmini Kolhapure, Zeenat Aman

Rating 3 /stars

MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW

Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman

Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

THE BIO

Favourite book: ‘Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren

Favourite travel destination: Switzerland

Hobbies: Travelling and following motivational speeches and speakers

Favourite place in UAE: Dubai Museum

The specs

Engine: 5.0-litre supercharged V8

Transmission: Eight-speed auto

Power: 575bhp

Torque: 700Nm

Price: Dh554,000

On sale: now

Honeymoonish
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Yuval Noah Harari, Jonathan Cape
 

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The years Ramadan fell in May

1987

1954

1921

1888

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if you go

The flights

Etihad and Emirates fly direct from the UAE to Seoul from Dh3,775 return, including taxes

The package

Ski Safari offers a seven-night ski package to Korea, including five nights at the Dragon Valley Hotel in Yongpyong and two nights at Seoul CenterMark hotel, from £720 (Dh3,488) per person, including transfers, based on two travelling in January

The info

Visit www.gokorea.co.uk

FIGHT INFO

Men’s 60kg Round 1:

Ahmad Shuja Jamal (AFG) beat Krisada Takhiankliang (THA) - points 
Hyan Aljmyah (SYR) beat Akram Alyminee (YEM) - retired Round 1
Ibrahim Bilal (UAE) beat Bhanu Pratap Pandit (IND) - TKO Round 1

Men’s 71kg Round 1:
Seyed Kaveh Soleyman (IRI) beat Abedel Rahman (JOR) - RSC round 3.
Amine Al Moatassime (UAE) walk over Ritiz Puri (NEP)

How green is the expo nursery?

Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery

An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo

Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery

Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape

The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides

All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality

Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country

Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow

Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site

Green waste is recycled as compost

Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs

Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers

About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer

Main themes of expo is  ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.

Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months

The burning issue

The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE. 

Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on

Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins

Read part two: how climate change drove the race for an alternative