In this post we to Sulaymaniyah via: Koya and Goyzha Mountain (with views of Sulay) all in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. After the photos in this post you I include a summary of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Peoples (Kurds).
Waking up in Erbil (Pop 1,612,700, Elev 390m) and standing at the rooftop of our hotel revealed a city very different from the Iraqi cities. Erbil is more modern, more organised and cleaner. It sits somewhere between Damascus and Beirut in this respect with Mosul at the bottom. Human settlement at Erbil may be dated back to the fifth millennium BC. At the heart of the city is the ancient Citadel of Erbil and Mudhafaria Minaret. Erbil was part of the geopolitical province of Assyria under several empires in turn, including the Median Empire, the Achaemenid Empire (Achaemenid Assyria), Macedonian Empire, Seleucid Empire, Armenian Empire, Parthian Empire, Roman Assyria and Sasanian Empire. We did not visit Erbil today but will be doing so on our last day in Kurdistan on 11 October 2020.
Koya or Koye or Koy Sanjaq (Pop 21,026, Elev 520m) is only an hour from Erbil and a very laid back town where most men wear traditional robes and head scarfs. According to local tradition, Koy Sanjaq was founded by the son of an Ottoman sultan who planted his flag and established a garrison at the site of a seasonal bazaar after having defeated a rebellion at Baghdad, and developed into a town as locals moved to the settlement to provide services to the soldiers. A Jewish community at Koy Sanjaq is first mentioned in the late 18th century, by which time it was already well established. The community had its own graveyard, and spoke both Jewish Neo-Aramaic and Sorani Kurdish. There are no more Jews now given the conflicts. The highlight of the town is the so-called Caravanserai. This was a roadside inn where travellers (caravaners) could rest and recover from the day's journey. It had rooms, food stalls and even baths. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa and Southeast Europe, most notably the Silk Road. They are present all over Turkey and Iran as well. These caravans date back to the first millennium BC and many were rebuilt in medieval times due to damage by invaders.
Our next stop was a real surprise – Lower Dukan Lake, which is 122km from Erbil. This is a freshwater lake fed by mountain snow in Iran. It supplies drinking water to many parts of Kurdistan but is running low at the moment. It has an area of 270 square kilometres and was created when the Dukan Dam and Hydroelectricity Plant was built in 1959. I wasted no time and went for a 2km while everyone else was lunching. I never thought I would swim in Kurdistan.
Sulaymaniyah (Pop 878,146, Elev 882m, Founded 1784) is surrounded by the Azmar, Goizha and Qaiwan Mountains in the northeast, Baranan Mountain in the south and the Tasluja Hills in the west. The city has a semi-arid climate with very hot dry summers and cold wet winters. From 1922 to 1924, Sulaymaniyah was the capital of the Kingdom of Kurdistan, a short-lived unrecognized state declared by Iraqi Kurds following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. From its foundation Sulaymaniyah was always a centre of great poets, writers, historians, politicians, scholars and singers, such as Nalî, Mahwi, and Piramerd. Like Romania and Bulgaria, Sulaymaniyah is in a wide-open flat basin making it perfect for expansion. It is a relatively modern city with lots of new apartments being built but still has an old style crowded bazar and market place full of people, cars, goods and even live animals of every eating kind !!! We stopped by the oldest café in the city full of men playing backgammon and other strange table games. The young guys in this town have incredible Elvis-style hair dos with ridges, jet-black colouring and tons of gel. After our walk around the bazar we drove to the top of Mount Goyzha at 1450m for a spectacular sunset and nighttime view of the entire city. This is possible because the mountain right next to the city. The day was capped off with a cable car ride down from the mountain from 1333m to 976m over 2km with terrific views on the way down. We then picked up delicious street food in a famous food street in town and walked the remaining 30min to the hotel. I picked out a medley of stewed veggies and salads, which were absolutely delicious. The Kurds definitely have a broader more Levant style cuisine than the rest of Iraq.
This was a great day, quite relaxing and a great city – my favourite to date. The mountain scenery of Kurdistan is definitely more interesting and wild than the flat desert of the rest of Iraq. The mountains I saw are also at the edge of the mountains of “The Stans” which is why the Silk Road (Spice Route) is so popular – my first taste of what is to come with “Marco Golfo”.
Enjoy my first day in the Kurdistan region of Iraq…
ABOUT KURDISTAN:
Kurdistan is not a country. At least not yet. It is not a member or observer of the UN. Kurdistan is divided into four regions: Northern Kurdistan (Turkey), Southern Kurdistan (Iraq). Iraqi Kurdistan gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, and its status was re-confirmed as the autonomous Kurdistan Region within the federal Iraqi republic in 2005. All the other Kurdish regions have applied for autonomy but not yet gained it. Autonomy means the region can govern itself but it still subject to Iraqi Federal Law. Kurdistan means “Land of the Kurds” and the Kurds are indeed different ethnically speaking from the countries that they are in – read about the Kurds after this section. Erbil is recognised as the unofficial capital of all four Kurdish regions even though Kurds are not free to travel between regions because the borders are controlled by the countries they are in. Kurdistan uses the same currency as Iraq but speaks its own language. Kurdistan has huge reserves of natural gas and has been negotiating with its neighbours to allow it to build pipelines to Europe with no success. Its only two lakes are fed by mountain snow from Iran, who will often block supply. For these reasons Kurdistan is at the mercy of its neighbours and is struggling economically. It is a balancing act between achieving independence and growing its economy.
ABOUT THE KURDISH PEOPLE (KURDS):
The Kurds are a people of Indo-Iranian origin. They speak an Iranian language known as Kurdish, which is a combination of Persian and Arabic and consists of several dialects depending which Kurdish region you are in. It is estimated that in 2022 there are between 30-45 million Kurds with approx. 15% living in Turkey. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims. After World War I and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres. However, that promise was broken three years later, when the Treaty of Lausanne set the boundaries of modern Turkey and made no such provision, leaving Kurds with minority status in all of the new countries. Recent history of the Kurds includes numerous genocides and rebellions, along with ongoing armed conflicts in Turkish, Iranian, Syrian, and Iraqi Kurdistan. Many Kurds consider themselves descended from the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, and even use a calendar dating from 612 BC, when the Assyrian capital of Nineveh was conquered by the Medes. Kurdish culture is closest to that of other Iranian peoples, in particular those who historically had the closest geographical proximity to the Kurds, such as the Persians and Lurs.
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