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No place for tourists
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Sergey Mukhamedov's travel blog
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31 March, 2010, 14:54 Iraqi cars
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Certainly, I was expecting to find twenty-year-old crates on Iraqi streets. I was even imagining how we would travel by a barely working Volkswagen minibus in the mountains. I was wrong. After all, Iraq has got oil and the cars there are mostly new, though with some local peculiarities.
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The first one is in 80% of cases an essential pack of napkins on the dashboard. I haven’t understood the love for napkins, but they were everywhere: in houses; cafes; cars; and at shops you can even buy special boxes made of wood to put napkins in and place it on the table.
The second essential thing is that the car seats are wrapped in cellophane. Nobody is worried about the fact that airbags can be placed inside the back of the seat. They do not wear seatbelts either.
More interesting are those people who do not take the factory protective covers off the car roofs, hoods and doors.
At least this is understandable – it will be kept intact for some time.
But they also do not take off papers with factory’s vehicle identification data!
Moreover, they even specially glue them back if they tear off.
And that is not because they are poor – you can find such papers even on very expensive cars. By the way, Iraqis call the big Cruiser “Monica”. Answering the question “Why?” they thought for a moment and said that this car is as beautiful as Monica Lewinsky. I suggested an explanation that when you get into the car it kind of swallows you, but they didn’t understand the joke. Perhaps the translation was not accurate.
Papers are even glued to old cars
Very often they obscure the driver’s view
Would you be able to drive with such a triangular sign stuck on the windscreen?
So, the question is: why Iraqi drivers do not take of all those things? To tell the truth, it was hard to find out the answer, as they tried to weasel out and offered false explanations, but I found out the truth in the end. It will be given as an update in the middle of the day. I won’t hide the comments. And this is the minibus we traveled on, not as old as it could be. The driver, Salam, liked our labels very much and he even said he wouldn’t take them off.
Story and photos by Sergey Mukhamedov
See travel photos by Ilya Varlamov in RT’s galleries.
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31 March, 2010, 06:28 Iraqi home and public catering
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Now I know that I hate kebabs and like tea, which is the only thing they can cook properly. There is only one dish in restaurants (if you can call them this) and cafes – kebab. With meat or chicken, sometimes with spices. Small, tough burnt pieces of meat, something like shashlik, are also called kebab. Even at picnics on holidays Kurds cook only kebab. This can be explained by a simple fact: there is no open fire in homes, so such a dish is a luxury. It is prepared only for special occasions, or you should go out to a restaurant to have it. However, only men can do it; women are not allowed to such places. Sometimes you can come across a café with a special folding screen. They are called family cafes and you can go there with your wife. There are two or three tables behind the screen, out of a total number of twenty in the café.
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Often you can come across cafes where visitors can play cards, domino, backgammon, smoke waterpipe and, of course, have tea. No spirits anywhere. Though a couple of times we managed to find shops with a liquor shop sign.
This is another place. Theoretically, everybody is playing for the game’s sake, but I did not understand what they were playing.
The owner of the café liked us a lot. He showed us the pictures of his place in some newspaper and invited to his home. But first he showed us the backyard with hens.
My dream has come true – to have a look at their “apartment”. As it turned out it is enough to smile at a local and greet him in some narrow street to be invited to his place.
I immediately spot that women enter the room only to serve – to bring tea, water or food. The children are at the entrance. Later the boys will be allowed to sit with us.
The owner of the house works as a guard in a prison and is keen on hunting. We were shown a video cassette of his achievements – the dogs were running after a hare in the field.
22 March, 2010, 06:22 Happy 2710! Nawruz in Akra
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The Kurdish New Year, Nawruz, is celebrated in Iraqi Kurdistan on a large scale. Cities compete to have the coolest party. TV channels broadcast it live, going from one city to another.
But the common opinion is that Akra has the greatest Nawruz festival. We learned two legends about the holiday. There is no information on Nawruz (particularly its Kurdish version) on Wikipedia and in general on the internet, and no Russians have ever written about the fire parade, so you’re getting exclusive information here.
Once upon a time there was a sick king named Duhak. His doctor prescribed him the blood of Kurdish babies, which he drank for a long time. Eventually, Kava killed the king with a hammer, lit up a torch and ran to pass it to the others to begin a riot.
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Another version of Nawruz’s origin is not that interesting, but worth mentioning – all the villages lit fires to help usher in spring.
So we are at the spot. Lots and lots of people climb up the mountains to get to the square. Most of them are men, there are few women standing on the side. On the stage a girl sings traditional songs. Although everybody was searched, there are some non-military people with guns. I see a very young guy with a pistol under his belt. The crowd is not aggressive at all, and despite men standing shoulder to shoulder, it’s quite easy to get through the crowd to any place.
Kids are playing, throwing small petards underfoot. Explosions, music, noise. Suddenly, there is a submachine gun burst not far away. The crowd makes disapproving noises.
Later on that night we heard it many times again – people are celebrating.
We don’t know what, when and where it will happen. All of a sudden, a fire chain going to the top appears on one of the mountains across. Ilya told me later that he was running up that mountain trying to catch up with the torch carriers. It takes one hour just to walk there! I stayed down on the celebration site, watching from the rooftop of the only building there, torches zigzagging to the mountaintop and gathering there.
The same happened on the next mountain. Turned out, people with torches were running (!) up the mountain and then began to get off fast. They break into the square, pile up still-flaming torches on the ground, making two big fires and begin dancing… later we saw on TV the fire ritual and the place where the race started from. Unfortunately, we did not know about it in advance.
Story and photos by Sergey Mukhamedov
See travel photos by Ilya Varlamov in RT’s galleries.
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About author
A couple of Russian citizen journalists are on a journey to Iraq. Sergey Mukhamedov and Ilya Varlamov have taken an unofficial route, travelling across the country with only their wits as protection against trouble. RT translates Sergey’s blog for you.
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03 April, 2010, 03:02
Very cool travelogue. Thanks for the photos, hillarious and educational. I have my own theory about protective plastic and stickers on cars, we'll see if it's correct.
01 April, 2010, 22:31
Very interesting photos. I was wondering if you intend to seek out the Turkmen of Iraq, and mention them in any manner, as they constitute over 2 million people in Iraq and are oft ignored injust about any media outlet the world over?