Kurdistan, declared a hot destination for 2011, is both in Iraq and a world apart.

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 risotto flavored with saffron, washed down with a glass of 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.

 
Photo: Citadel of Erbil (Hewlêr) by Kaisu Rissanen

That's right. I'm in Iraq. In a five-star hotel. With Italian wine and Italian food, cooked by an Italian chef. 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. 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. Kurds like to promote it as "the other Iraq," an acknowledgment it is in fact part of that country. But as they will also readily tell you, they dream of independence. 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.
 
Luxury, and caution
 
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 speaks to Kurdistan's aspirations to become a global destination, but its empty terminals suggest that there's still a long way to go.
 
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. 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 in 2009 found out.
 
Travelers also need to be aware of possible government protests. Kurds recently underwent a mini-version of an Arab Spring, in the city of Sulaymaniyah. The best way to get around, short of joining an organized tour, is to hire local guides.
 
A 'new' city
 
Sulaymaniyah is what is known in Iraq as a "new" city, which means that it was built in 1784.
 
We stop for tea at the legendary Sha'ab (People's) tea shop, which is packed with men sipping glasses of piercingly sweet tea and shouting while playing dominos. Apparently they are discussing such matters as poetry, art and politics, because this is the intellectual hub of a city that prides itself on its learning.
 
One of the Kurds' fiercest battles against Saddam was fought in Sulaymaniyah, at what is known as the Red Security Building, which housed the dreaded Mukhabarat, Saddam's intelligence service.
 
Kurdish officials have preserved the structure as testiment to the tyranny of Saddam's regime and have turned the prison block where Kurdish dissidents were kept and tortured into a museum. The walls of one room have been embedded with the shards of mirrors, 80,000 in all, in an eerily evocative memorial to the estimated 80,000 victims of Saddam's attempt in the late 1980s to wipe out the Kurds altogether.
 
Wandering through the dank, dark cells, you can feel the misery and the squalor.
 
Biblical lands
 
We head northwest across the rolling plains of biblical Ninevah, where the pre-Christian Assyrian empire was based. Striking out across a field, we encounter the half-buried remains of an Assyrian aqueduct at the site of Jerwan. Built about 3,000 years ago, it lies alongside a minefield planted by Saddam's army.
 
The minefield, mercifully, is marked by rows of upside-down red triangles on sticks. The ruins bear no sign identifying them as an important archaeological site, and we clamber over them, running our fingers over the cuneiform inscriptions left by the workmen of a forgotten civilization, who constructed what is reputed to be world's oldest aqueduct.
 
Heading north into the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, we pass a number of conical structures, signifying that we are closing in on our next destination -- Lalish, the spiritual capital of the obscure Yazidi religious minority. The pointy cones are graves and temples belonging to the Yazidis, who claim to be the original inhabitants of the land. Lalish is where they believe the world began, where Adam (without the help of Eve), gave birth to man and where Noah built his ark, on the nearby peak of Mount Arafat. Their main temple, carved from a cave in the mountainside, is dedicated to Sheikh Adi, known as the religion's 12th-century "reformer."

Tourists are welcome, and so are their probing questions, although you're left with the impression that they aren't quite telling you everything.
 
Layers of civilization
 
The capital of Irbil claims to outrank Syria's capital, Damascus, as the oldest continually inhabited city in the world by a few thousand years.
 
At first glance, there's nothing old at all about this pancake-flat metropolis, except for signs that it is in the throes of a massive economic boom.
 
For American travelers, the biggest draw is likely to be the ancient citadel, a vast walled city towering 90 feet above the traditional bazaar. David Michelmore, a British conservationist working at the site, explains that the citadel is high because so many civilizations have been layered atop one another. The earliest identified dates to the Uruk era in approximately 6000-4000 B.C.; the uppermost structures were mostly built in the 19th century under Ottoman rule.
 
It's now under a massive restoration, and, Michelmore says, the Ottoman-era homes will be converted into trendy restaurants and boutique hotels.
 
But sometimes, unrestored has its own charm. We stroll along the deserted cobblestone streets and wander into living rooms and courtyards that once belonged to now long-dead merchants and functionaries, admiring the elaborate murals and the elegant wood and stone carvings of a bygone era.
 
That's perhaps one of Kurdistan's biggest attractions: that it's still so untouched by the modern world. Yes, modernity is galloping at a furious pace into Irbil and beyond. But in three days of exploring, we haven't encountered a single other tourist.

Full article: Star Tribune travel (20.8.2011)

More articles:

• Kurdistan Photo album by Kaisu Rissanen (Summer 2010)
• Matkailu Irakin Kurdistanissa (3.11.2008)
• Kevät Kurdistanissa, Usva Auer, Voima 7/07
• Kurdistanin paikallishallinnon diplomaattiset suhteet ovat kukoistamassa (1.8.2008)
• Travelling to Kurdistan, Kurdistan.fi