The Baron Hotel in the battered Syrian city of Aleppo is packed with memories for owner Armen Mazloumian that bullets and bombs can never destroy.
He recalls standing behind the late Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser as he delivered a speech, snickering as a child when told a guest was called Agatha Christie and listening to his father's tale about visits by David Rockefeller.
"The Baron Hotel tells the history of Aleppo," Mazloumian, 63, said last week by phone from the establishment, which was opened by his grandfather in 1911. "I can't describe the sadness in my heart now."