Asmara

According to local tradition, Asmara was founded when four highland villages on the plateau united to live in peace, and it existed as a settlement for over half a millennium on the trade route to Massawa. In the 1870s Ethiopia's emperor Yohannes IV made his governor Ras Alula ruler of the region, and Alula made Asmara the provincial capital; Italy took it in 1889 as it assembled the colony of Eritrea.

In 1897 the Italian governor moved the colonial capital here from Massawa, preferring the cool, dry air of the plateau to the heat of the coast. A railway was built up the escarpment, reaching the city in 1911, and a grid of avenues, villas and offices was laid out. The great transformation came in the 1930s, when Italy poured money and people into Eritrea as the base for its invasion of Ethiopia: cinemas, bars, petrol stations, apartment blocks and factories went up in rationalist, futurist and art deco styles, built by Italian architects for a population that by 1939 was more than half Italian. Eritreans were largely confined to separate quarters under colonial segregation.

British administration followed Italy's defeat, then federation with and annexation by Ethiopia. The thirty-year war of independence ended in 1991 when Eritrean fighters entered Asmara, and it became the capital of the independent state in 1993. Poverty, war and isolation meant little was demolished or rebuilt, which is why the 1930s city survives so completely; in 2017 UNESCO inscribed the centre as a World Heritage Site.

Asmara is a highland city and predominantly Tigrinya-speaking, with a long-settled Muslim population as well as Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christians; the Orthodox cathedral, the Catholic cathedral and the main mosque stand within a few streets of one another, which residents mention with pride.

The dominant social ritual is the coffee ceremony — green beans roasted over charcoal, ground, brewed three times and served with incense and popcorn — and its urban cousin, the macchiato drunk standing at a bar counter. The Italian legacy is not only architectural: coffee, pastries, pasta, cycling and the evening stroll along Harnet Avenue remain part of daily life.

Public life is quiet and orderly. There is no independent press, national service shapes the lives of most young adults, and political conversation in public is avoided; a large diaspora keeps in close contact with the city and sustains many households. Music and dance, above all at weddings, are the liveliest cultural forms, and cinema-going, football and long café conversations fill the rest. Manners are courteous and reserved, and visitors are treated with a formal, watchful hospitality.

Asmara is much the largest city in Eritrea; no recent census exists, so population figures are only estimates. It sits at about 2,325 metres, which gives it a climate unlike anywhere else in the country.

The economy is small and state-dominated. Government and national-service postings, small trade, workshops, transport and construction provide most work, and remittances from relatives abroad support a large share of households. Electricity, fuel, water and imported goods are frequently in short supply, and queues are a routine part of the week. Private business exists but within narrow limits, and many young people are absent, either in national service or abroad.

The day begins early with coffee and the walk to work or school. Offices and shops break in the middle of the day, and the late afternoon brings the passeggiata: families and friends walking the main avenue, filling café terraces and bars until the streets empty fairly early in the evening. Bicycles are common, cycling is a national enthusiasm — the Tour of Eritrea often starts here — and traffic remains light enough that the city is unusually quiet for a capital.

Asmara eats injera, the wide sourdough pancake made from teff, laid on a shared platter and topped with stews: zigni, beef simmered in berbere chilli spice; alicha, cooked without berbere and milder; shiro, a purée of ground chickpeas; lentils and vegetables. Hilbet, a cream of fenugreek, lentils and fava beans, is vegan, and berbere accompanies almost everything.

The Italian inheritance is genuine rather than nostalgic. Pasta is everyday food, sometimes with sauces spiced with berbere, and panettone is served with tea or at the coffee ceremony. Espresso and cappuccino are served in practically every bar and coffee shop in the capital.

The traditional drinks are sowa, a bitter fermented barley beer brewed at home, and mies, a honey wine, drunk by Christians, while tea is offered to anyone who declines coffee and homes keep the three rounds of the coffee ceremony, served with incense and popcorn. The markets supply berbere, cumin, honey and clarified butter.