Iraq

Visited: December 2021

Duration of visit: 14 days

Capital city: Baghdad

Population: 40.3 million (2021)

• Baghdad – run down but charismatic old town, where simple coffee shops, book stores, craft shops and historic cafes in Al – Mutanabbi street entertained me for two days.
• Visiting the old city of Babylon and Sadam’s Palace on the hill above, where I meet a group of Iraqi visitors that invited me to their homes around the country.
• Karbala – a holy city for Shia Muslims with the shrines of Imam Husayn and Abbas, where a local friend Karah hosted me in his house.
• Najaf with an immense Imam Ali Holy Shrine, can be placed alongside Karbala as one of the spiritual capitals for Muslims.
• Nasiriyah – staying with Ibrahim’s family, BBQ picnic in the marshes and climbing massive Sumerian pyramid Ziggurat of Ur.
• Mosul – the city that was taken over by ISIS and established as their capital between 1914 and 1917 is still in ruins, but recovering from one of the hardest bombings in 21^st
• Iraqi Kurdistan – in the north, didn’t impress me with its more developed setting, but non-English speaking Kurds, unpleasant soldiers at checkpoints and lack of cultural sightseeing.

Iraq has been one of the most complicated countries to visit in the last few decades due to never ending armed conflicts and extremists’ attacks. It was not really considered as a serious option, until a list of non-visited countries with appropriate weather in December, Covid-19 free and reasonably priced airplane tickets threw up Iraq as possible option at the end of 2021. As soon as I found out that the country had finally become safe enough to visit, with a visa on arrival program that simplifies the paperwork, I was ready to travel to Baghdad.

The arrival to Baghdad airport in the middle of the night was delayed by long queue for visas, but I was the only real visitor in a group of Iraqi travellers with local origins. Hassan was waiting for me at the garage, outside of the airport secured zone.

The fact that somebody would come to the airport at 2:00am, waiting for me as a complete stranger for an hour and driving me to my hotel was one of the most pleasant surprises during my backpacker’s career. Moreover, Hassan’s service was free of charge!

I explored the capital of Iraq most of the time with locals that I met through the Couchsurfing platform. Hassan actually offered to host me, but somehow, I preferred staying in a hotel for the first nights.

The old part of Bagdad is a mix of tiny coffee bars, craft workshops, bookshops, rundown houses and areas that are under renovation. Al-Mutanabbi and Al-Rashid Streets are the center of actions, where street vendors fill the pedestrian areas, while cars, buses and all other kind of vehicles struggle to break through traffic jams. At night Hassan took me to the other side of Tigris river, where more upscale houses, businesses, restaurants and shops are located.

If Baghdad functions as a normal city with reinforced security, it became obvious pretty soon that travelling north, to the city of Samarra, security checkpoints are at another level.  Heavily armed soldiers were stopping our minivan every few kilometers. Most of the time a few words of our driver were enough to get through, until I was pulled out of the car and temporary stopped at the last checkpoint before entering Samarra.

I was not allowed to continue by public transport without police escort. Lucky enough, within minutes, a group of three people showed up and offered me a space in their car, while escorted to the old minaret of Samarra.

Malwiya Mosque, built in the 9^th century, and UNESCO World Heritage Site, was for a time, the largest in the world. What is left and worth visit, is a spiraling cone shaped minaret raising 52 meters high. Climbing up was not difficult at all, but walking on the edge of a spiral ramp becomes psychologically challenging when rising towards the top platform, from where an amazing 360 degrees view around the city opens.

The magic of Babylon is not only in its name (Gate of Gods), but it was the real capital of one of the most influential empires of the ancient world, founded more than 4,000 years ago. Local archeologist, Ali, guided me around, explained about the historical events and took some photos of me.

Babylon was the most important city in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization and where the foundations for the concepts of government, religion and literature were first laid. The city rose to prominence during the reign of Hammurabi, the Mesopotamian king renowned for the world’s first written law.

Under Nebuchadnezzar II, the second and greatest king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Babylon reached glory, most famous for the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. German archeologists moved the original Ishtar Gate to a museum in Berlin, Saddam Hussein restored the site and rebuilt much of Babylon on top of its ancient ruins, including a smaller replica of the Ishtar Gate.

On top of the hill above Babylon, Saddam also built himself a striking palace, overlooking the ancient city which he reconstructed, in a way to connect Iraq to its ancient history. The palace was turned into a command center during the war in 2003 and most of the interior walls of the castle have since been vandalized and covered in graffities.

When wandering around the palace, I came in touch with a mixed group of young Iraqis who invited me to pose with them for a photo. That moment was a turning point in my trip around Iraq. I was asked to join them, first to a restaurant for lunch, later to visit the Tower of Babel and, finally, for a dinner with tea on the banks of Euphrates river.

In the meantime, while my new host, Karah, had some business to do, I visited a house of his local friend. Even though most of them were struggling with English, we had a lot of fun and some local habits and customs started to reveal from the first hand. I was like a star, Rok here, Rok there, more food, another cup of tea, a photo or two more … when suddenly, a security guard at Tower of Babel pulled out a gun and gave it to my hands, while insisting that I should be posing with his gun for a photo. Well, I wanted an adventure in Iraq and I got it: standing with a group of new friends by a thousand-year old minaret with a gun in my hand enjoying a beautiful sunset.

I didn’t know where I was going to sleep or eat, but I was convinced I was going to enjoy and be safe. And it was so during my whole trip in Iraq. I stopped planning what to see, where to sleep, what to do. I just trusted my activities to Karah, Aziz, Ibrahim, Sara, Abdullah, Izaldeen, Ali and others, who made my visit of Iraq one of the most unique experience of my life.

Karbala is the place where Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Husayn, was killed during the battle in 680 AD. The Imam Husayn Shrine is the mosque and burial site of the third Imam of Islam, near the place where he was martyred.

To no surprise, the tomb of Husayn is one of the holiest places in Islam, outside of Mecca and Medina and over 45 million people make pilgrimages to the site every year.

After having dinner in Karah’s house, it was almost midnight, when I was finally taken to the shrine. I was immediately stunned by the view of its golden domes and minarets, accompanied by numerous colorful decorations. So many people around at such a late hour and lights that were reflecting darkness, sadness and devotion of visitors from all over the World were magnificent. The next morning, the crowd was much bigger, more food and drinks were available in the secluded area around the mosque.

Most of my hosts were simple families, with many kids, university educated and able to communicate in English. All houses or apartments are built with the same principles as far as the access for visitors is referred. The first room entering a house is usually a reception room, which is converted into a living and dining room during the day and sleeping room at night. A toilet is also attached to this room. This space is separated from the rest of the house, to which I never had access.

I met only male members of the family and never had a chance to get in touch with a mother, sister or wife, since they are not allowed to meet men outside of the family. It is a kind of different experience, but you get used to it, since it is a part of local culture (and religion), which is reflected everywhere around Iraq.

The only exception was my host Sara in Baghdad, an extremely well educated, open-minded girl, who speaks perfect English. Since she is married to an open-minded man and her brother is opposing religious constraints implemented in Iraq, there were much less restrictions.

The Mesopotamian Marshes are a wetland area located in Southern Iraq and Southwestern Iran. Historically, the marshlands used to be the largest wetland ecosystem of Western Eurasia, mainly fed by the Tigris and its distributaries, characterized by tall qasab reeds and also included a number of freshwater lakes. Today, they are a kind of tourist attraction, but not easy to access.

Many visitors take an organized tour. I was not keen on taking a tour and paying a lot of money, but rather trusted Ibrahim, who was my host in Nasariyah, to organize a trip in the Iraqi way. His semi-hidden girlfriend Nur, local friend Mohamed and his son joined us. We hired a boat, navigated around the channels for an hour, before stopping in a small village, where a huge dome built with reeds was converted to a mosque, meeting place and a restaurant, according to the needs of local communities. Invitation for a tea and a group photo was a compulsory part of the visit.

The rest of the day we docked on the shore, where we prepared masgouf (seasoned, grilled carp) on the improvised BBQ above open fire. Eating on the carpet with local friends in beautiful nature (surrounded by garbage though), having great conversation that is rinsed with tea … what else can I ask for?

Ziggurat of Ur is a place of worship, dedicated to the moon god Nanna, in the Sumerian city of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia. This 4,100-year-old massive, tiered shrine, lined with giant staircases reminded of Egyptian pyramids, with the difference of having several terraced levels as opposed to the pyramids’ flat walls; there are no interior chambers and they had temples at the top rather than tombs inside.

That day, Ibrahim, Nur, the driver and myself were the only visitors of the best-preserved structure of Mesopotamia, restored by King Nabonidus. The main reason for its excellent preservation is the location in dry area. There was not much to see from the top, but the image of the ancient kingdom sprawling out in every direction thousands of years ago could be easily adopted.

There are two ways to travel between Iraqi main cities: buses and shared-taxies. The latest are more convenient, since they fill-up faster, carry passengers directly and are more comfortable. However, most of the drivers are crazy when overtaking any vehicle that is in front of them.

The scariest experience I had was on a shared-taxi from Nasiriyah to Baghdad. I was in a front seat of a comfortable Dodge trying to ignore the driver’s capacity to travel at average speed of 160 km/h, reaching 190 km/h, when anybody dared to approach us from the back.

Considering the fact that the road was not in perfect condition, though extremely wide, speeding like this, while other cars drove much slower, could have brought a tragic end.

Mosul is for me one of the most special cities in Iraq. It might not have been historically as relevant as Babylon or Ur, but recent history connected with Islamic the State (2014-16) is still so deep in my mind, that my respect toward this place is enormous. I was lucky enough to be hosted by Ali and his family. Ali, his brother and their friend Mohamed, showed me the historical old town, guided me around and explained me the horrors and pain of the captured city.

The occupation of Mosul by the Islamic State began when ISIS fighters took control of the city on the 10^th of June 2014. The brutal occupation of this important city in northern Iraq resulted in death, torture, rape and disappearance of many innocent citizens. Women were subjected to a strict Sharia law, members of religious and ethnic minorities were killed or evicted from the city, destruction of cultural, religious, and historical artifacts occurred.

Mosul was proclaimed the second capital of the Islamic State of Iraq (the first one being Raqqa in Syria). Eventually, ISIS declared its caliphate in Mosul, where cruelty, abuse and madness of soldiers to unknown dimensions were probably the worst in recent history. Over the course of battles, the Iraqi government, aided by Peshmerga soldiers from Kurdistan, fully liberated Mosul by 21^st of July 2017.

The old town was completely destroyed during the bombing that liberated it from the evil of Dash, as ISIS is called by locals. Even before entering the city, I noticed kilometers of remains of ruins that had been removed and deposited there.

Many NGOs help recovering the city and its inhabitants that are psychologically destroyed after being captured, tortured or affected by loses of their loved ones.

UNESCO has been rebuilding the central square and houses in the same area. A lot of young people found their professional challenges working for organizations from all over the World that have been trying to help people of Mosul. It seems that the local government is struggling and not offering enough help.

Before the trip, I heard many comments about the beauty of Kurdistan, safety and hospitality of people. Therefore, my expectations were high, when driving in a taxi from Mosul to the north. The Iraqi flag was soon replaced by the same colored flag with a yellow sun in the middle, checkpoints became even more continued, while local soldiers in different uniforms were not welcoming me anymore.

“Welcome to Kurdistan. This is not Iraq. Here it is safe and good, not like in Iraq!”, were the words in broken English that an official migration army dedicated to me in a very serious manner. Well, I was in Iraqi Kurdistan. No stamp in my passport, officially the same country, but a different world.

There are over 45 million Kurds around the World, mostly in Turkey, Syria, Iran and only 6 million in an autonomous province of Iraqi Kurdistan in an area of 40,642 km². The informal territory of Kurdistan extended over three countries covers about 190,000 km².

Kurds suffered a lot under Saddam Husain, being poisoned with chemical weapons and tortured for political or cultural differences or without any reason at all. The suffering made them strong and powerful, but they don’t trust anybody and everybody could be a potential terrorist – something similar to what felt in Israel.

The next day I visited Lalish – the holiest temple of the Yazidis. At least once in their lifetimes, Yazidis are expected to make a six-day pilgrimage to Lalish in order to visit the tomb of Şêx Adî and other sacred places. Lalish Temple dates back about 4,000 years.

Yezidism is considered by its adherents to be the oldest religion in the world and the first truly monotheistic faith. Most of estimated 400,000 to 800,000 Yazidis in the world are Kurdish speakers. I knew that it is not allowed to walk inside the temple in shoes and I knew it was going to be cold – approximately 5C. What I didn’t know was that there would be hardly any Yazidis in Lalish and that the temple itself is rather unimpressive.

I wandered around in cold conditions, trying to justify my visit. I got a few words of explanation by a local boy, who showed me around the main temple, which had black stones and burned fire places or altars. Beside earthenware and covered rectangular structures, no decoration, signs or artefacts were visible. He warned me to avoid stepping on the thresholds of the entryways. I was not allowed to the underground area from where I heard the noise of water falling or stream flowed.

After finishing the visit, I was so happy to put my shoes on again and didn’t mind waiting for a ride back to civilization. It didn’t look promising, but, after a while, I was lucky enough to get a free ride by a local contractor, who took me back to the main road in his truck. We were trying to find words in English that would be understandable for him but without any success, after he finally started to talk in perfect English: “a, b, c, d, …. x, w, z”. His pronunciation of alphabet was perfect, but he apparently missed other English lessons at school.

Duhok, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah are three big cities in Kurdistan. They seem pretty modern comparing to other big cities I visited in the South, but they lack charisma, historical landmarks and any other attraction beside the bazaar. I am convinced that the quality of life is quite good for Iraqi standards, but, from a backpacker perspective, I wasn’t really inspired.

However, I was lucky enough to meet locals in Duhok. Girls there are much more liberal than in the South, some of them with loose and uncovered hairs, others again completely darkened by burqa. Mohamed – the owner of a local paragliding club, introduced me to his teammates and we had a late-night conversation about Big Kurdistan and the role of brave Peshmerga soldiers, who were the strongest force to clean Iraq of ISIS. The other important topic was the role of NGO’s in the region. I realized, how proud are Kurds on their identity, history and special connection with France from the times of President Francois Mitterrand.

Travelling from Duhok to Erbil was the worst experience I had on the whole trip in Iraq. It all went smooth until we arrived to a checkpoint 30 kilometers before Erbil. During a regular procedure, the guards called me out from a shared taxi and started to evaluate my passport and visa.

The responsible officer started to talk something in Arabic and pointing to my passport. The only thing I understood was that I could not continue my travel to Erbil, but needed to go back to Duhok to get a stamp or additional travel permit.

No one was able to help me with translation, the taxi driver was not helpful, soldiers were ignoring me and, at the end, I was taken to the previous checkpoint, just 2 kilometers back. I was left in the middle of the main highway with confusing instructions to return to Duhok in order to get a permit to travel to Erbil.

It was Friday – a day off! All government offices were closed. I knew it would be a waste of time going back, without even knowing where exactly and what for. It must have been a misunderstanding of a stubborn officer, who didn’t know that there is no stamp at the border and that my Iraqi visa was valid for Iraqi Kurdistan as well.

After sometime, I approached other soldiers and one of them could communicate in solid English. He noticed that I know about the rules and suggested me to avoid the checkpoint where I had had problems before, by diverting through the southern route. He stopped the next car passing by and talked to the driver to give me a lift to the nearby taxi stand.

After a few minutes of negotiations, I agreed my ride with a taxi driver and I was happy to be moving again. We were passing various checkpoints, but the taxi driver was calming me down: “I am Peshmerga, no problem for you.” On the way, we picked three more people and one of them explained me through Google translator, that he was a Peshmerga soldier too, still fighting ISIS in Mosul.

They started to show me photos of their trophies – ISIS soldiers that they had killed or beheaded. There is no joke about that! It’s part of their lives. The war was horrible and these guys are happy to show how they killed ISIS militant members.

I couldn’t watch the photos, but I was extremely thankful that he brought me right to the hotel in Erbil without any questioning at checkpoints. We negotiated hard for the final price, since the original plan was not dropping me off in Erbil downtown.

I was told that Erbil (the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan) was the best place to enjoy the New Year’s Eve. With a group of two backpackers and local hosts drinking soda in a bar and listening to music, we got bored pretty soon, observing Kurd men groups, who were doing the same.

We went to a specialized store, bought some beers and chatted late into the night about the Middle East’s present and future: Spanish, Russian, Syrian, Kurdi and Slovenian opinions were appreciated, analyzed and valued on that special evening. May the Bew Year just bring peace and prosperity to Iraq and relieve the World from Covid-19 in 2022.

Travelling around Iraq was one of the most unique experiences of my life. I was hosted by locals, who opened their homes, offered me a place to stay, food and numerous hours of chatting about past, present and future of Iraq. I have never met so many people, who treated me as a family, appreciated my opinion, protected me and recommended me to their friends in the next destination that I was visiting.

Iraq will stay in my heart forever. I hope the future will bring peace and calm to people that suffered so much in the last decades. First by Saddam Hussein’s regime and recently by the occupation of insane Islamic State.