Meet the Expo 2020 visitor who collected 200 stamps on his kandura

A new trend has emerged when it comes to collecting Expo 2020 Dubai stamps in pavilions.

Visitors to the Expo have been busy collecting stamps for their yellow passports.

Organizers revealed last month that 700,000 copies of the Dh20 booklet have been sold since October 1, quickly becoming a staple of the Expo.

In a twist on collecting stamps from each pavilion for the passport, a volunteer at Expo 2020 Dubai used clothing, including a kandura, T-shirts and a scarf, to create very special keepsake pieces.

Muhammad Asim Durrani, 39, from Pakistan, started collecting stamps in October this year, first decorating a small-sized kandura with more than 200 stamps from each flag. He has since added two T-shirts and a scarf to his collection.

“The kandura is for my son, who is now eight months old, while the little t-shirt is for my five-year-old daughter,” said Durrani, who has worked as a driver at Dubai Customs since 2009.

He got the idea by stamping the passports of Expo visitors.

“It’s part of my volunteer job to stamp the passports of visitors to Expo Dubai, and while I was doing that, I thought why not do it for myself but differently,” he said. declared.

Mr. Asim Durrani started with a T-shirt, which he plans to keep for himself.

“The first stamp on this T-shirt was from the United Arab Emirates flag,” he said.

As he continued to collect stamps on his T-shirt, he considered doing the same on a smaller T-shirt for his daughter and a kandura for his son.

“My daughter is a huge fan of Dubai Expo and has taken part in many videos about the event so I thought I would do something special for her. Then I thought I would do something for my son too. ”Said Mr. Asim Durrani.

A trendsetter

After finishing his T-shirt with a stamp from each pavilion, he was approached by a number of visitors asking him to buy it, as he strolled around the Expo site with his memorabilia.

“A woman asked me to buy it and when I refused she kept increasing the amount until it hit 3000 Dh, but I still said no,” he said. -he declares.

Other visitors began to copy him, including a British woman who saw him dab on one of her clothes.

“She saw me dabbing one of the clothes and told me it was very creative, then said she would copy my idea,” Mr. Asim Durrani said.

He currently collects other stamps on a white scarf which also commemorates the Golden Jubilee of the United Arab Emirates.

“When I’m done, I’ll frame the t-shirt I’m planning to keep for myself, along with the scarf, and then give them as a gift to the Director General of Dubai Customs and my line manager,” a- he declared. .

Mr. Durrani is an active volunteer at Expo 2020 and has so far spent over 1,750 hours working with different departments including Dubai Police and Civil Defense.

“I have also received over 100 certificates of participation and appreciation for my volunteering,” he said.

Update: December 9, 2021, 10:05 am