An uncommon view in Duzkhurmato

Taking pictures from a moving car is not easy. These views are quick snaps from car window in Duzkhurmato in October 2008.

Duzkhurmato is a small Kurdish town by the road from Kirkuk to Bagdad. It lies about 70 km south from Kirkuk.

All the traffic from Turkey to Bagdad goes via this road, there are many lorries. South from Kirkuk they drive only at daytime. There are many foreign lorries, most of them from Turkey. This one of the German low price super market Aldi was the most surprising one.

In places like Duzkhurmato tourists do not stop the car for photographing, you just take pictures from a moving car and maybe one picture out of ten is quite OK. For example this one is tolerable:
If you are lucky maybe your driver is decreasing the speech. I also learned that it is good to wash the car window. There is not much more to do for the sake of photographing in Kurdish countryside, which is under the Bagdad rule.

Television news show Iraq only as a battlefront and bombing field. However, the everyday life looks normal in many places. The high way restaurants near Duzkhurmato look quite the same than the ones in German Autobahns and the highway from London to Scotland. Unfortunately, I do not have better pictures.

Pictures: Kristiina Koivunen

Blogging in Iraq

Sahmaran's readers might have wondered my long silence. The main reason is the weakness of the Iraqi internet, as well as lack of time.

I was wondering why there are so few bloggers in Iraq when blogging is very popular in Iran. (But not in Turkey - that's also a good question - the answer is not at least the lack of possibilities to use internet. But for some reason Turks seem to be much more talented internet hackers than bloggers.)

After visiting the first time one of the very few internet cafeterias in Hewlêr I understood the reason for the lack of blogging. One must be real hero to blog regularly by the slow and low capacity Iraqi net.

The problems in blogging were of many different character. Just look at this pictures! I do not speak Arabic or Kurdish Sorani dialect. Not to say anything about the difficulties in finding a functioning internet access. Even if someone had computer with in internet access one has to wait that there is electricity and the line is functioning. For example sand storms prevent internet to function in many places.

Now I am back in Finland after three hot and hectic months in the Iraqi part of Kurdistan (and three hours in Habur in Turkey).

I try to put pictures from South Kurdistan to Sahmaran blog (I have almost one thousand pictures from the journey of last spring and three thousand from the autumn journey, not all of them....) but some how there seems very little time for blogging - sorry. I really respect active bloggers, like Hevallo and Mizgin of Rasti, who write much and keep us informed about the situation in Kurdistan. But I am busy with my next book.

Good news from Kurdistan!

Hewlêr Citadel from the Park Minaret direction (click the picture so it becomes bigger).

Readers of Sahmaran might have wondered the long silence.

Sorry for that. The reason is that I have made a great tourney around the autonomous Kurdistan Region in Iraq. I have travelled also in Mosul, Kirkuk and Diyala provinces. I try to put pictures here soon, if Arianet - Insallah - is in order.

Finally there are good news from Kurdistan! Not yet in connection to political situation but to the weather: The summer heat is finally over and it has been raining!