WELCOME TO THE KURDISTAN REGION OF IRAQ

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Online: www.FlyOlympic.se email: Info@FlyOlympic.se   

To/From

Erbil, Sulaymaniyah &Baghdad

Book Online: www.FlyOlympic.se

Call +46-8-24 84 80 Stockholm

Ring oss mobil  072 938 94 86

 

                                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

 

 


Erbil International Airport

Suleimaniah International Airport

 

 

 

Amman - Erbil
8 flights a week

Operated by Royal Jordanian Airlines
Website: www.rj.com
Amman:
Tel: +962 6 4453052
Tel: +962 6 5857111
Erbil:
Tel: +964 (0)750 477 9898
Tel: +964 (0)750 491 0973
E-mail: eblrj@yahoo.com; eblga2@rj.com
Stockholm
Tel: +46 8 54 52 59 52
London:
Tel: +44 (0)8719 112112
Paris:
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 65 99 91

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Asian Pacific

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Urmieh – Erbil
1 flight a week

Operated by Iran Air
Website: www.iranair.com
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Dubai - Suleimaniah
Operated by Azmar Air
Contact Azmar Air in Dubai
Tel: +971 4 266 8993
Fax: +971 4 266 8233
Mobile: +971 50 551 4161

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Erbil Duhok Suleimaniah
  1. Erbil International Hotel
  2. Khanzad
  3. Noble
  4. Chwar Chra
  5. Hawler Plaza
  6. Ankawa Palace-Hotel
  1. Dilshad Hotel
  2. Jiyan Hotel
  3. Mazi Motel
  1. Suleimaniah Palace: Tel. +964 (0)53 313 4141
  2. LaleZar Hotel
  3. Azmir Palace: 0748 012 3513
  4. Ashti: Tel. +964 (0)53 312-7999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Necessary telephone numbers in Kurdistan

Kurdistan's cuisine

Fresh local ingredients

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Fresh herbs are the essence of Kurdish cuisine. People also love to cook with an abundance of vegetables. Lamb and chicken are the
 primary meats.

A typical Kurdish breakfast is flat or raised bread with honey, delicious sheep or buffalo yoghurt and a glass of refreshing black tea.

Savoury dishes are usually served with rice or flat bread. Lamb and vegetables are simmered in a tomato sauce to make a delicate stew that is usually served with rice. In the spring and summer, salads and fresh herbs are often on the dinner table. Kurds also make many types of kofta and kubba, dumplings filled with meat.

During Nawroz, the Spring Equinox New Year, Kurds celebrate by dressing in their finest clothes and setting off to the countryside for picnics, often taking a large pot of yaprakh. Also known throughout the Mediterranean as dolma, yaprakh is a dish of freshly picked vine leaves stuffed with rice, meat, herbs and garlic, and then simmered in a large pot.

Black, sweetened tea is Kurdistan’s favourite drink.

The Kurdistan Region has fertile soil and a hot summer climate ideal for growing grapes and orchards such as pomegranate, fig, and walnut. The Region’s honey has a clear light taste and is often sold with the honeycomb. Kurdistan also produces excellent sheep, goat and buffalo dairy products.
 
 

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq is a very spatial place.  While flat in some areas, much of the Region is foothills where they run up against rugged mountains that divide Iraq from Turkey and Iran.

 

With long flaming hot (but dry!) summers, and cold and clammy, and rainy and snowy winters (hopefully, to fill the springs and water the land!), springtime can be gorgeous with green and wildflowers most everywhere.  Fall is also very nice, but following the hot, dry summer, it's a season of brown, a good time to wander up the highest mountains after the snows have melted. 

 

With a population estimated at 4.5 million, the area currently under direct administration by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is about the same as that of Switzerland.  This means it is larger than many countries including Belgium, Lebanon, and Singapore, and other places like Maryland and Massachusetts in the United States, Catalonia (Spain) and Sicily (Italy), Taiwan and East Timor.

 

Most attention, and resources, are currently focused on the three main cities of Duhok, Erbil, and Suleimania where over 65% of the population resides.  But there are dozens of small towns and many hundreds of hamlets and villages located in areas that are far more interesting for the adventure, eco, and cultural traveler.

 

Archaeological sites go back at least 10,000 years to the village of Jarmo where sedentary agricultural began.  Some 50,000 years ago at Shanidar ritualistic burial practices among Neanderthals indicate the earliest expression of emotions among human-like beings.  Gaugamela, the battle ground where Alexander the Great defeated the Persian King Darius in 331BCE, is located in Kurdistan. The oldest aqueduct in the world, built by Assyrian King Sennecherib in 700BCE (pre-Roman) is also here at Jerwan.

 

Mostly Muslim today, the Region has been one of the earliest homes of Christians who today still speak neo-Aramaic and live in dozens of rural and urban communities, and hold prominent positions in government and the private sector. Ancient churches and monasteries are found all across the Region. Also prominent in the Region are the Yezidis whose main religious center is located at Lalish. There are also indications of other ancient religions, including Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Kakayee.

 

 

The Washington Post recently featured the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as a place to visit.  There's a link to an excellent gallery of photos by Sebastian Meyer.  Also a link to some details on how to get there and where to stay.  Round-trip airfare on Turkish Airlines from Washington (Dulles) to Erbil starts at $2,400!  Flights are also available from a number of European and Middle East airports including Frankfurt, Vienna, Amman, Beirut, and Dubai.

 

National Geographic Traveler features Kurdistan as one of 20 Best Trips of 2011 along with Ulaanbaatar, Sardinia, Tasmania, Uruguay, Simla, Namibia, and 13 other places.

 

Facilities and services for travelers are still limited but that's part of the adventure.  Most everything is available within a couple hours' drive at most.  Generally safe and secure, traveling is easy, often fun, and always interesting.  Paved roads are good and unpaved tracks are great.   Virtually the only effective terrorists in the Region are road terrorists: too many bad drivers.

 

It's been less than a decade since the Region opened up to the outside world and good maps are still not easy to come by.  But getting around and becoming lost is part of the adventure.  To avoid "mistakes", it's critically important to stay away from areas too close to the borders which are usually unmarked. Virtually all roads and tracks lead to communities.  People are friendly and hospitable, so no problem finding the way back to wherever.  Ask. 

 

Part of incredibly rich Iraq, nouveau wealth and inadequate planning are strikingly glaring in the rapid urbanization and so-called modernization. There are also many new parks and some safer roads. Luxury hotels and shopping malls, bowling allies and amusement parks, fashion and fashionable features are highlighted.  Overwhelmingly still a cash economy, Kurdistan remains a land where credit cards have (fortunately?) yet to become a way of life. 

 

Bottled water is ready available and empty plastic bottles are found everywhere, along with the regional bird, the crow-like black plastic bag. Environmental efforts including anti-litter and recycling programs to keep Kurdistan klean have (also) yet to become a way of life.

 

The Kurdistan Region is (still), generally speaking, crime-free, drug-free, and tax-free.  Of course, it could be worse.  As with most modernization, increasingly rapid, creeping change is leading to this, too, coming to pass. 


 

The Washington Post

27 May 11

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/kurdistan-the-other-iraq/2011/05/24/AGSJAnCH_story.html

(Follow the link to a gallery of photos by Sebastian Meyer.)

Kurdistan: the other Iraq

View Photo Gallery — Out of the shadows: Ancient and glorious — and mostly safe — this Iraq destination is ready for its day in the sun.

By Liz Sly

So, I’m lying on a fluffy white duvet and surfing the flat-screen TV embedded in my hotel room wall. I’ve just finished a meal of Milanese risotto flavored with saffron, washed down with a glass of chilled pinot grigio. Through the window, I can see the twinkling lights of what claims to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, giving way to the darkness of the plains of northern Iraq.

That’s right. I’m in Iraq. In a five-star hotel. With Italian wine and Italian food, cooked by a real Italian chef. There are buckets of iced champagne sitting on the bar downstairs, and a Bulgarian pianist is playing classical music in the marbled lobby. It’s just too un-Iraq to be true — and in some ways it’s not true.

For this isn’t the real Iraq, the one where bombs go off and people are assassinated and the electricity is almost never on. This is Kurdistan, the northern enclave that broke away from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War and secured virtual autonomy from Baghdad following the U.S. invasion in 2003. It’s mostly safe, and much of it is beautiful, in some places spectacularly so. It’s populated not by Arabs but by Kurds, who claim European descent, speak their own language and are possessed of an unqualified love for all Americans.

It’s also old, with archaeological settlements dating back 9,000 years and remnants of a multitude of civilizations too numerous to list. Kurds like to promote it as “the other Iraq,” an acknowledgment that it is in fact part of that country. But as they will also readily tell you, they dream of independence in an expanded nation of Kurdistan reaching into Turkey, Syria and Iran.

And it is supposedly the hot new tourist destination of 2011, scraping in at No. 20 on National Geographic’s list of “20 best trips of 2011.”

I'm here to find out why.

It soon becomes apparent that the five-star Irbil Rotana Hotel is not the real Kurdistan, either. It’s a pinprick of Western-style luxury in a largely unspoiled land. Irbil’s spanking new airport, a cavernous structure of white steel and gleaming marble, speaks to Kurdistan’s aspirations to become a global destination for businessmen and tourists. Its rattlingly empty terminals suggest that there’s still a long way to go to fulfill those ambitions.

Here, travelers can obtain 10-day visas, which are not, however, valid for the rest of Iraq. And that raises one of the key challenges of any visit: figuring out where Kurdistan ends and the rest of Iraq begins. The borders between the region of Kurdistan and the rest of the country are hotly disputed, and it's not a good idea to stray beyond them into areas still prowled by insurgents.

Indeed, it’s a good idea to steer clear of any of Kurdistan’s borders, as three Americans who went hiking in the direction of Iran and were detained by Iranian soldiers in 2009 found out.

In addition to the risk of straying into hostile territory, travelers need to be aware of possible anti-government protests. Kurds recently underwent their own mini-version of an Arab Spring, with almost daily demonstrations in the region’s second city, Sulaymaniyah. Live ammunition was used against the demonstrators, and though the protest movement has now been crushed, the core grievances that caused it, including corruption and restrictions on free speech, have not been resolved. The unrest has severely dented Kurdistan’s claims of being an oasis of calm in a troubled region and undermined its boasts of democracy.


National Geographic Traveler

 

20 Best Trips of 2011

 

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/best-trips-2011-photos/

 

 

Photo of bridge

Kurdistan, Iraq

Photograph by Lonely Planet Images, Alamy

Considered an oasis of peace and stability in a historically volatile region, the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northeastern Iraq is drawing a growing stream of curious Western visitors to its ancient cities, snowcapped mountains, and bustling bazaars. The 2010 expansion of Erbil International Airport—located in the provincial capital and main commercial center—has improved access to the region and helped fuel tourist infrastructure development. Recent advances include construction of several new luxury and business hotels and additional escorted small group tours focused on Kurdish ethnic heritage and historic sites.

Experienced guides such as Hinterland Travel and Kurdistan Adventures lead 8- to 16-day cultural tours. Highlights include Erbil’s historic citadel and Grand Mosque, the ruins of Salahaddin’s Fortress in Shaqlawa, and the Jarmo Neolithic village archaeological site (7,000 B.C.) located in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. Some itineraries include excursions into Kurdish ethnic regions in eastern Turkey and northwestern Iraq.

Pictured here: Dalal Bridge in Zakho, Iraq

 

Many Iraqi families are ready, willing, and able to fly, but visa restrictions severely hinder their travels. 

 

So far, Iraqi passport holders are unable to travel to most countries unless they obtain visas before departing Iraq.  Obtaining such visas could be excessively difficult and time-consuming.

 

Iraqi passport holders traveling to Turkey and Lebanon are granted visas upon arrival.  Consequently, flights between Erbil and Istanbul and Erbil and Beirut have increased.  There is talk of Turkish Airlines in the future operating 10 flights between Erbil to Turkey (Istanbul, Adana, Antalya), and a similar number of flights between Suleimania and Turkey.

 

There are many other countries where Iraqi passport holders can travel to without obtaining visas before departing from Iraq.  For sure, while some of these countries may be less attractive than others, there are also some that may be worth considering. 

 

Of 192 countries that are UN Member States, 32 do not require Iraqi passport holders to have a visa when entering their countries, or they grant visas on arrival.  For these countries, there is no need to obtain visas before traveling.  Please recheck this information on the Internet or through a competent and reliable travel agent.

 

Here's the list:

 

Iraqi passport holders

nr.

no visa/visa upon arrival

1

Azerbaijan

2

Bangladesh

3

Burundi

4

Cape Verde

5

Comoros

6

Cook Islands

7

Djibouti

8

Dominican Republic

9

Ecuador

10

Georgia

11

Haiti

12

Kosovo

13

Laos

14

Lebanon

15

Macau

16

Madagascar

17

Malaysia

18

Maldives

19

Micronesia

20

Mozambique

21

Niue

22

Palau

23

Saint Kitts and Nevis

24

Samoa

25

Seychelles

26

Tanzania

27

Timor-Leste

28

Togo

29

Turkey

30

Tuvalu

31

Uganda

32

Zambia

 

National holidays and key dates in the Kurdistan Region’s history
Key dates in the Kurdistan Region’s history

21st March: Nawroz, Kurdish New Year celebrated on the spring equinox.

5th March 1991: Uprising against Saddam Hussein’s regime, which began in the town of Rania.

14th March 1903: Birthday of Mustafa Barzani, leader of Kurdistan’s national democratic movement.

16th March 1988: Halabja Day, commemoration of chemical weapons bombardment on the city of Halabja.

National holidays observed by KRG Council of Ministers in 2011

Ministries and government offices are closed. Businesses may also close.

Please note that of the national holiday falls at the weekend (Friday or Saturday), then the next working day is taken as the national holiday and government offices are closed.

1st January: New Year’s Day

6th January: Army Day

15th Feb: Mouloud (Prophet Mohammad’s Birthday) *

5th March : Uprising Day (Liberation of Ranya City)

11th March: Liberation of Erbil City

14th March: Mustafa Barzani’s Birthday

21st - 23rd March: Nawroz Kurdish New Year (Spring equinox)

9th April: Baghdad Liberation Day (fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime)

1st May: Labour Day

14th July: Republic Day

30th August to 1st September: Eid-al-Fitr Feast (End of Ramadan. Estimated; according to lunar calendar) *

6th to 9th November: Eid al-Qurban Feast *

26th November: Muharram (Islamic New Year) *

5th December: Ashura *

Other important dates in 2011

These are working days at the KRG Council of Ministers, and businesses are open. Special events take place around the Region to mark these dates.

8th February: Ramadan Revolution Day

10th February: Kurdish Authors Union Day

18th February: Kurdish Students Union Day

1st March: Commemoration of Mustafa Barzani’s Death

7th March : Liberation of Suleimaniah City

8th March: Women's Day

13th March: Liberation of Duhok City

16th March: Halabja Day

20th March: Liberation of Kirkuk City

1st April: Assyrian New Year

14th April: Commemoration of Anfal genocide against the Kurds

16th April: Remembrance of Chemical Attack on Balisan and Sheikh Wasan

17th April: FAO Day

25th April: Anniversary of First Cabinet of Kurdish Government (1993)

13th June: Suleimaniah City Fallen and Martyrs Day

8th August: Ceasefire Day (end of Iran-Iraq War)

11th August: Start of Ramadan, month of fasting (estimated; according to lunar calendar) *

16th August: Establishment of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Day

3rd October: Iraqi Independence Day (National Day)

11th December: Establishment of Kurdish Women’s Union

* Follows the Muslim calendar, Islamic holiday dates are estimated only.

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