Kirkuk photo exhibition in Finland

I have visited Kirkuk almost twenty times since spring 2008.

During these journeys I have taken hundreads of photos. I choose best of them to a photo exhibition in Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

The exhibition is open two weeks from Monday, the 16th August, in STOA, a cultural centre of City of Helsinki. Later the photos will be shown in other places and in Kurdish cultural events.


The exhibition consists of seventeen large pictures.

The name of the exhibition is ”Everyday life in Kirkuk in the shadow of war” (in Finnish language the name is much shorter).

Many people have asked what I want to say with my photos.

The news about Kirkuk in international mass media tell about bomb explosions, war and other problems.

I have seen another Kirkuk. Despite fear and tension the brave Kirkuk people try to make best of their every day life and look forward for a better future.


Many people have helped me in Kirkuk to collect information about the town. With this exhibition I want to express my gratitude for them.

Many people in Kirkuk have repeated the same thing: the problems of Kirkuk are organized from outside Kirkuk, from the neighbouring countries. Kirkuk has been centuries a multicultural city. Various ethnic groups have lived there in peace and harmony with each others.

So should be also the future of Kirkuk! With my pictures I want to show Finnish people a glimpse of optimism about Kirkuk.

On Monday the 16th August fifty people participated the opening party of the exhibition. There were Kurdish people residing in Finland and their Finnish friends.

The Kurdish community in Finland has good relationship with Finnish people. They make together both cultural and political activities.

Genocide process continues in disputed areas

When Kurds speak about the Kurdish genocide, they usually mean the Anfal. But the Anfal is just the peak of it. Genocide is a long process which develops step by step from ”milder” forms to massacres and total annihilation of the target group.

One genocidal method which Saddam Hussein used was deportation. Almost all Kurdish villages were burnt and villagers were forced to move to cities and towns. In Kirkuk the Ba'athist regime deported 200 000 Kurds.

It practised also statistical falsification to make the Kurdish proportion of population to look smaller. Because of this target Kirkuk province was divided to several provinces. This is statistical genocide.

Instability continues in Kirkuk, Mosul and elsewhere in the disputed areas. It is called terrorism and security problem. But we must speak with correct terms: Sunni Islamist terrorism in disputed areas continues the Ba'athist genocide process.

The target of referendum as described in Article 140 is to correct the effects of deportation and to let people to decide whether they want to return to the pre-Ba'athist situation.

Due to delay of the referendum situation in the disputed areas remains unclear. Reconstruction of buildings and public services is delayed. It is difficult for deported people to return to their home areas.

And not just this: people still escape from the disputed areas, especially from Mosul province. Bomb explosions occur in areas where the inhabitants belong to ethnic or religious minorities. Terrorists attack Yezidis, Kakais and Assyrians. People escape to safe areas controlled by KRG or to Europe. One by one, not in such massive operations than during the Saddam days.

But the effect is the same: when Christian and Yezidi families leave, Arabization continues in areas which have been centuries multi-cultural and multi-religious. This is one step in the genocide process, not just terrorism. When Al Qaida makes bomb explosions in other countries it does not lead to deportation of some people from their homes. The damages of terrorist attacks are repaired and life returns back to normal.

International community must regocnize the true character of terrorism in the disputed areas as a genocidal process, not call it just a security problem. The Kurdish genocide in Mosul and Kirkuk started during the 1920s. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed Britain took part of it as its colony. It could not decide what to do with Mosul and Kirkuk. So nowadays Britain has a historical responsiblity to search a permanent solution to stop the genocidal process in the disputed areas.

Happy New Year to Kirkuk!

Happy New Year 2010 to readers of Sahmaran (if there is still somebody)! Sahmaran has been silent for a long time, sorry for that. I live in Kalar, and internet there is too slow to add any pictures to blog and even for text there seems to be all the time problems, for example lack of electricity. This post I write in Sulaymania.

Despite the recent frustrating news from Turkey, let's hope 2010 will be a better year (but there are really no signs that it would be so)!

These pictures are from my favourite town Kirkuk. I took the pictures in October 2009 from a moving car, the typical way to do photographing in Kirkuk.







Pictures: Kristiina Koivunen

Reparation in Kirkuk Citadel

Kirkuk is again in top news. There was the 20th June 2009 a massive suicide bomb attack - once again. With my condolences to the families of the victims and my respect to the Kirkuk police, which battles against terrorism, I tell some good news from Kirkuk.
Like so many other Kurdish cities and towns, also Kirkuk has an ancient citadel. I visited it for the first time in May 2008; pictures from that journey are in Sahmaran the 23rd June 2008.
One year later in May 2009, I visited it again. There is at least one good news from Kirkuk: the reparation of the Citadel has started in a small scale.

The destruction done by Saddam Hussein is so huge, that it might be impossible to repair completely the Citadel before there is peace in Kurdistan, but this is good start. This is how the Old Town of Kirkuk still looks, after the visit of Saddam’s caterpillars.



Until the destruction of this area, Kurds and Turkmen lived in the Citadel, both groups in their own streets which had been inhabited for centuries.

To repair these houses is huge work which has not yet even started.

But the reparation of the religious monuments is going on.


See the how the minaret looked one year ago:


Now the minaret has been painted:

The history of Kirkuk is thousands years old and it is holy town for many religions, for example for Jews and Christians. Kirkuk was the home town of Prophet Daniel and his grave is supposed to be in Kirkuk. Well, no one knows where it exactly is, but this old building is built as the grave of Prophet Daniel to honour him.

Prophet Daniel's grave 2008:



Prophet Daniel's grave 2009:



Let’s hope that Kirkuk Citadel will be soon in the UNESCO World Heritage Program!

Abdullah's Restaurant is again open in Kirkuk

Abdullah's Restaurant, where suicide bomb killed about fifty people during Kurban Bayram the 11th December 2008, has been repaired and reopened , as you can see from these pictures. It is located in Kirkuk by the road to Hewlêr.

Another restaurant of the same owner was bombed in Kirkuk centrum about one year earlier, the 3rd November 2007.

The owner of these restaurants is a wealthy Kurd. He says that if his restaurants are destroyed by bomb explosions, he repairs them and reopens as soon as possible.

Pictures by Kristiina Koivunen, the 21st January 2009.

Kirkuk, a multicultural city

Advertisement of a Turkmen festival held in Kirkuk in November 2008. Kirkuk Turkmen are not so similar to Turks than the Turkish state claims.

There was a massive suicide bomb attack in Kirkuk during Eid al-Adha, the 11th December 2008. Fifty people died.

News from Kirkuk in international mass media is always like this: big bomb explosion, small bomb explosion, attack, murder. There is no information about the every day life.

I visited Kirkuk five times during this year. In autumn 2008 I spent six days in Kirkuk province.

What did I see? People who try to keep the normal daily routines despite very heavy military presence. They wait desperately Article 140 to be put on action.

Despite its enormous oil resources, Kirkuk is a poor no one’s land: Baghdad government is controlling it but not developing its infrastructure, fearing that the city will fall to the hands of Kurds. KRG is doing some social and health programs there (for example Roz) but its share of the budget of Iraq is meant to the provinces of Dohuk, Erbil and Sulaymania, not to the Kurdish provinces outside the region.

Many people told me about the pre-Saddam Kirkuk. It was nice multicultural city with lots of tolerance and respect to other ethnic groups. Traditionally most inhabitants in Kirkuk are Kurds and Turkmen; most Arabs have arrived there recently (and are also victims of Saddam’s terror, they have been deported from the Delta area in South Iraq). Many Kurds and Turkmen speak both languages and mixed marriages are common.

People repeated that the problems and tension in Kirkuk are led from outside, Kirkuk residents want to have a peaceful life but there are too many foreign groups acting in Kirkuk.

I spoke also with many Turkmen. When they heard a foreigner speaking Turkish they started to pour their despair on me, how the world does not know what the Turkmen of Kirkuk want: peace. Turkman is different language than Turkish (which I cannot well), I did not understand much else from their speeches that they were desperate.

Since the Kurdish uprising 1991, Turkey has supported Jabhat Turkmen -party in Kirkuk to sabotage Kurdistan becoming independent with the oil resources of Kirkuk. Information and experience should have flown to the opposite direction: pre-Saddam Kirkuk was modern multicultural city where different ethnic groups have co-existed centuries in peace and harmony. The Turkish state is built on the false identity of mononationalism and Turks are afraid of multiculturalism. They should not be: the pre-Saddam Kirkuk was an example of this.

Turkish people should learn from the history of Kirkuk and use the experiences of peaceful co-existence for changing Turkey a similar place as Kirkuk was until the Baath party destroyed the atmosphere. But instead of learning something from others Turks wants to bring the repressing Turkish mentality to Kirkuk, and continue the destruction of both Kurds and Turkmen from where Saddam finished his job.

Kirkuk in pictures - 2

I have put to Sahmaran also earlier pictures from Kirkuk, here is some more of them:

The symbol of Kirkuk is fire. These flames - which can be seen when entering Kirkuk from Hewlêr direction - are very famous. But this is not Baba Gurgur, the eternal fire which has been burning four thousand years without a break. Remember that fire is the symbol of Kurdish culture. Maybe it all started here many thousands years ago.... In the battle about Kirkuk it is question of much more than oil.

Kirkuk Bazar is a walking street. Usually cars are not permitted to enter here.

Siniyu self (Turcoman: sini self) is very popular game in Kirkuk during ramazan. Men do not play it at other times.

Stadium where Saddam arranged parades to show his power. Pay attention especially to the Kurdish petrol station on the left. Six per cent of world’s known oil resources are in Kirkuk - but the petrol which is sold on the streets comes from Iran.

A view near Dubiz. Water comes here via a canal from Dohuk reservoir.

Pictures: Kristiina Koivunen

Kirkuk Citadel - 2

March 2007 I wrote about Serhat castles . Also South Kurdistan has rich cultural heritage with castles which are maybe thousands years old. They are not only Kurdish history, as there has been many other civilizations during the history.

These pictures are from Kirkuk Citadel. It is a peaceful oasis in the middle of the war zone. Just look at the pictures, while walking in the Citadel you could not imagine that the war with almost daily bomb attacks is just outside the Citadel walls.

Saddam destroyed the old town of Kirkuk during the 1990s. It is inside the Citadel but I do not have pictures of the centuries old houses which are now in ruins. Let us hope that the war will not cause more damage to Kirkuk Citadel. Instead there should be archaeological surveys and preservation. Kirkuk Citadel should absolutely be in the UNESCO World Heritage Program!

I am sure that in the future Kirkuk Citadel will be a popular target for tourists.

I know very little about Kirkuk Citadel. If some one has information about it, please let me know!

Kirkuk in pictures

UNAMI (United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq) has published an analysis how to resolve disputed internal boundaries.

I have not had time to go through it, so I do not comment it.

But here are some pictures from Kirkuk. I have been wondering why there are so few good pictures from Kirkuk available in Internet. Well, after visiting the town I understand the reason. The pictures are taken in April 2008.

At least the car windows should be clean when I go there next time!

Kirkuk Citadel - 1

Here in Hawler has been sand sand storm for some days and the internet has not been working well. I try to write more as soon as I have time.

Here is a picture of me taken in the Citadel of Kirkuk the 28th April 2008 with some Kurdish students of the KOMAK journalism school. The school is located in the Kurdish part of Kirkuk. I tell more about it later, but it might be only when I am in Finland as I am busy here.