The Chouara Tannery

Chouara is the largest of the three working tanneries in the Fes medina and the one every visitor is steered towards. The yard is a honeycomb of stone pits, white ones holding a lime and pigeon-droppings mixture that strips hair and softens the hide, coloured ones holding dyes traditionally drawn from poppy, indigo, henna, mint and saffron. Men stand waist-deep in the pits and work the skins with their legs. The process has been carried out on this site since medieval times and the finished leather goes straight to the babouche and bag workshops in the surrounding lanes. There is no ticket office: you climb through a leather shop to its roof terrace, look down, and are then shown the stock.

History

Local tradition dates the Chouara and Sidi Moussa tanneries to the founding of Fez by Idris II at the start of the 9th century; texts mention the Sidi Moussa tannery clearly in the early 12th century, while Chouara's age is less certain, though tanneries surely existed by the river soon after the city began. Their leather was a mainstay of the city's economy and was said to be sent as far as Baghdad; al-Jazna'i says the Almohads counted 86 tanning workshops in the city, and a later source gives about a hundred in the Marinid period. The tanneries kept being enlarged and altered into modern times, and a third, Ain Azliten in the north of the city, was added at the end of the 18th century (Wikipedia, Chouara Tannery).

The main sights

• The dye pits - the grid of white lime pits and coloured dye vats seen from above.
• The workers - men standing in the pits turning hides by foot and hand.
• The drying roofs - dyed skins spread flat across the terraces around the yard.
• The workshops - cutting and stitching of babouches and bags in the lanes below.

When to go

Mornings, when work is under way and the light falls into the yard; by late afternoon much of the activity has stopped. Work slows greatly on Fridays. Summer heat makes the smell far stronger, and the dye colours are most vivid after the pits have been refreshed rather than at the end of a cycle.

What to expect

The smell is genuinely bad and the sprig of mint they hand you does very little. Access is through shops and the viewing is followed by a hard sales pitch that is difficult to leave politely; a tip is expected even if you buy nothing. Guides in the lanes will try to attach themselves to you. This is a working industrial site, not a display, and the conditions are hard to watch.

Nearby

The Nejjarine square, the Al-Qarawiyyin quarter and the main medina souks are a short walk away.

Key facts