ABOUT THE VILLA
Dear visitors of the website!
Welcome to Hurghada, the Egyptian Rivière, to the land of eternal holidays, where sun shines every day of every year. Here you don‘t care about the weather forecast, you don‘t need un umbrella (unless from the sun) and you don‘t think about warm clothes. Here, all year round, even during the cool (from Africa‘s point of view) winter months you can enjoy warm sea, sandy beaches, coral reefs and bathing in azure pool. Welcome history lovers to the trips to unique places of Egypt of pharaons and Egypt of beduins. Active leisure fans will find refreshment in scuba diving, snorkeling, kitesurfing and sailing – El Guna‘s favourite beaches of kitesurfers are just a few kilometres away form villa.
Welcome to the vacations in villa “Shahrazad” – to rejuvenate your body and soul in a harmonious space, made according to the best arabian design traditions, where colours and aromas, forms and textures are mixed together, and the mythology of the ancient world will help to hear the modern... soul of your own. After many years spent on creation of this unique project, we can affirm with full responsability, that villa “Shahrazad” is a healing space, intended for spiritual recreation of people, who value beauty, peace and nature. It is a house of seminars and meditation practices, here you can take a rest from noises of the western lifestyle, regain your powers and peace of soul.
We welcome groups, families and individuals. We can accomodate 14 people in villa at one time. Please read chapters Exterior and Interior for more information about villa.
The story of Shahrazad
The name of the villa “Shahrazad” symbolises the purpose, activities and values of the place. Shahrazad (engl. Scheherazade) – is the name of a Persian queen and storyteller, known to most readers from the oriental tales‘ set “A Thousand and One Nights” (the arabian name of “Kitab alf laylah wa laylah”). The legend says, that the Persian king Shahryar, disappointed by his unfaithful whife and lost a trust in women, started to avenge all the women by marrying every day a new girl and killing her by the next morning dawn, before the new wife could dishonor the king. A thousand girls have died this way. One day, when there no any young women left in the kingdom, suitable to become the king‘s wife, the elder vysier‘s daughter Shahrazad, a well-educated and well-lettered girl, knowing poetry and writings of the great Persian poets by heart, good at history and Islamic philosophy, and also the medicine of Galen, knowing countless exciting stories, have offered to become the shah‘s wife. After the wedding‘s ceremony, while lying in the marital bed, she asked Shahryar, if he would fulfill one last wish of Shahrazad – to bid farewell to her younger sister Dunyazad.
After arriving to the palace, Dunyazad, following the previously discussed agreement, asked her sister to tell one of her exciting stories. Shahrazad was telling the story all the night, and, by breaking the dawn, she stopped at the most thrilling moment. Shahryar, willing to hear the end of the story, gave another day of life to his wife. And so, each night, Shahrazad continued her story and started a new one, stopping in the middle of it the next morning, for three years in a row. During that time, she gave birth to three sons of Shahryar. The healing stories of Shahrazad helped the king to turn to sanity and to trust people again, he fell in love with his wife and declared her his queen. Such was the power of long term art therapy applied by a wise woman!
Oriental tales – persian, hindu, arabian, turkish, egyptian folklore, quirky islamic philosophy and even the basics of Galen medicine is mixed together in this marathone of one thousand and one night‘s psychotherapy in the process, which could be compared to hypnosis of M. Ericsson or the virtual model of computer consciousness “space in space, window in a window”. Researchers trace back of even five semantic levels of the told story in this set of tales, consisting of up to 10 volumes (e.g. sir Richard Francis Burton‘s edition in 1885).
Shahrazad‘s story is more than a romantic tale about the victory of love and beauty. This central character of “A Thousand and One Nights” could be regarded as an archetipe of psychologist, of psychotherapist, of spiritual teacher, which guides the client‘ lost soul through the labyrinth of wise and teaching stories, step by step calming down the power of enraged inner complexes, bypassing the censorship of the rational mind, introducing all the elements of psyche (that would be all the heroes of “A Thousand and One Nights”), brings the client to the center of mandala – a meeting with the self. In terms of analytical psychology of C. G. Jung, recreation of the wholeness of the psyche – is the recovery.
The outside space and inside space of the villa was made regarding Shahrazad‘s achetype. We have built this house so, that the guests of the villa entering through the gates would find themselves in a safe, harmonious, aesthetically pleasing environment, far from everyday concerns and from the usual life, would calm down from thinking persistently and from making some standard associations.
Colourful rooms of villa and their archetypes of mythology, walls full of aromas, collection of symbolic pictures from distant countries of the world, ringing exotic arabic chandeliers, oriental hand-made wooden furniture and all the details tell the stories to the guests about the ancient world cultures, eternal values and transformations of our modern souls. After relaxing in this colourful, aromatic, resonant, meaningful space, the guests of villa can hear (or create) the story of their own soul journey – a personal myth, giving a meaning to everyone‘s life.
Unique trips through Egypt, seminars of mythology, psychology, meditation, colours, aromas and art therapy – all the activities in villa are planned so, that our guests could “feed” their inner world with beauty, goodness and some meaning, could rest their body and strenghten their inner self before returning to their own orbit of life.
