Then: Entertainment in the Desert Nights of the 1970s In the 1970s, entertainment in Dubai was a quiet, community-driven affair shaped by cultural tradition, religious observance, and the natural rhythms of desert life. There were no concert arenas, no theme parks, no cinemas showing international releases, and no global sporting events drawing tens of thousands […]

Then: Paper-Based Government and Manual Services in the 1990s As recently as the 1990s, interacting with the Dubai government meant navigating a world of paper forms, physical queues, rubber stamps, and manual processing systems that would be almost unrecognisable to a resident of the emirate today. Applying for a trade licence, renewing a visa, registering […]

Then: The Souk Era of Trade and Bargaining For centuries before the first shopping mall appeared on the Dubai skyline, the souk was the commercial heart of the city. These open-air and covered markets, clustered along the banks of Dubai Creek in the Deira and Bur Dubai districts, were where every transaction took place – […]