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News, Here/Now Algeria
Here/Now: Sova is the driving force behind Algeria’s skate scene
Text Hamdi Baala | Photography Osama Cornawy
It took a long time for Abdelbasset Ameuri, known to many as Sova, to get his hands on a skateboard. Born in Tipaza, west of Algiers, he remembers watching MTV’s Ridiculousness, hosted by Rob Dyrdek, and becoming fascinated by skateboarding. But in Algeria at the time, the equipment was almost impossible to find. In 2016, he finally purchased a used board online from someone who had brought it in from abroad. He started practising on the street during the little free time he had as a mechanical engineering student. By the time International Go Skateboarding Day rolled around that year, he attended an event in Algiers where only 11 people showed up. With no dedicated space and barely anyone in his city skating, he eventually stopped riding.
In 2021, back in Tipaza, Ameuri came across a small community of skaters. “It reignited something in me,” Ameuri remembers. He picked up a board again, this time older and more confident, and kept skating even after others around him stopped. Around the same time, he started posting skating videos on Instagram, gradually building a following and inspiring more people to pick up a board. It wasn’t long before people started looking to him as an unofficial spokesperson for the scene. “I guess it has to do with my positivity,” he said.
From then on, he dedicated countless hours to practising and watching YouTube videos to teach himself as much as he could about skateboarding. “You could get lucky and do fairly well in basketball or football, but there is no luck in skateboarding,” he said. “It takes commitment to fall again and again, and get back up every time.”
Young skaters have taken ownership of urban space in Algiers over the past few years. Their videos, gliding between cars stuck in downtown traffic or performing tricks on the city’s stairs and handrails, spread quickly across social media. Being on a board changes the way you see public space, Abdelbasset says. “A dent on the sidewalk caused by the roots of a tree might be an inconvenience for walkers, but for a skater, it’s an obstacle to jump over,” he said. “The city becomes a playground.”
In 2023, Ameuri was invited to an international skating event in Russia. There, he met like-minded people from all over the world who told him how they organised themselves in their countries. “I came back wanting to build something similar in Algeria,” he remembers. That idea eventually became Algeria Skateboard Society, a non-profit organisation to help the community. Boards and related gear being either too expensive or unavailable in the country, the group receives equipment donations, both locally and internationally, from similar organisations, and distributes them among Algerian skaters. “Algeria Skateboard Society isn’t only about donations. It’s about bringing the community together and creating space for it to thrive” he said.
Eventually, local authorities took notice. In summer 2025, a skatepark finally opened as part of the redevelopment of El Kettani Square in Bab El Oued. The park and the surrounding seaside esplanade have drawn large crowds ever since, becoming a hub for the city’s growing skate community.
“It changed the history of skateboarding in Algeria,” says Abdelbasset, who was consulted many times by the local authorities supervising the project. He explained that the new space inspired children, and many parents approached him asking if he could teach their kids. After years of organising small Go Skateboarding Day gatherings in the street, he says that “the new dedicated space allows for a larger and more organised approach.”
Beyond the growth of the scene, skating still represents something personal for Ameuri. “There’s no limit to what you can do. Your mind is the only limit,” he said. A few years earlier, there were so few skaters in the country that he knew every one of them. Now, he may encounter four or five people he has never seen before each time he goes to a skatepark. He hopes that every town in Algeria will have its own skatepark, and a few already do. “I believe we are heading in the right direction,” he said. “We can promote this activity nationwide and accomplish great things, but even if that doesn’t happen, we’ll continue to skate out of passion.”