Girls scouts parading in front of the Presidential Palace in Damascus (Abu Rummaneh Street) in 1954. President Adib al-Shishakli is standing on his office balcony. This palace was constructed and first used by Shishakli in the early 1950s, before rising to fame as the place where President Gamal Abd al-Nasser appeared in 1958 to declare the merger of Syria and Egypt to form the United Arab Republic (UAR).