The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Ramadan lanterns, or fawanis, spread colour, light, and the soothing spirit of the Holy Month. Every year, fawanis are hung on every street. But if you’re looking to get your own lantern, we present you with our comprehensive guide to buying your personal Ramadan Fanoos.

The best place to buy your fanoos is El-Sayeda Zeinab. Right next to the mosque, every year they put up a tent dedicated to selling different lanterns with different prices. From our experience, you can find the best lanterns at the shops nearer to the mosque, and the farther you get, the more the prices as well as the quality drop.

So let’s get to the price guide. You can get small wooden lanterns very cheaply. The smallest go for 10 EGP for three lanterns, larger ones go for 5 EGP, 15 EGP, 35 EGP, and even 50 EGP per lantern. They’re mostly made of wood and coloured plastics, and some play traditional Ramadan melodies.

More colourful models include the traditionally shaped lantern decorated with multi-coloured jewels. It comes in white or black copper. The average size is priced at 150 EGP, and the bigger it gets, the more expensive it becomes.

Smaller models, about the size of your hand, are only 65 EGP. 

Other shapes that have a traditional style with a bit of a twist vary from 15 EGP to 35 EGP depending on the size.

As always, Ramadan lanterns take the shape of a popular character at the time. Just like Detective Korombo had his phase, this time it’s all about Mo Salah. So if you’re a real Momo fan, you can get a big lantern with your favourite football player. Surely 225 EGP is nothing for a true supporter.

But if you’re a true die-hard fan, you’ll also have to buy those mugs (35 EGP each).

And since this Ramadan comes in world-cup flavour, you can get an Egyptian team themed table cloth (25 EGP) for all your Ramadan at-home gatherings.

The usual items are there, of course, like Boogy and Tamtam dolls. Women power is strong here as Tamtam goes for 120 EGP, while poor Boogy is only 100 EGP (take that, gender wage gap).

At the end, we prefer the traditional Egyptian style fawanis starting from around 35 EGP and going way higher (up to 2500 EGP) as the size gets bigger.