On the afternoon of Sunday 20 March, I drove out from the city of Erbil in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and on into the serrated mountains to the north. There, in a town called Akre, nestled into folds of rock, I joined thousands of Kurds to celebrate Newroz, the local iteration of the Persian New Year, which coincides with the vernal equinox to banish winter darkness and welcome in spring.
Sometimes pitched by locals as “the other Iraq”, the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region is home to roughly seven of the world’s 30 million stateless Kurds. It is the size of Switzerland, with not-dissimilar terrain. I’ve been visiting since 2016, and living here since 2019, and the longer I spend, the more layers of history, culture and faith I see.
As the last light of the year leaked away, a procession of men in traditional clothing climbed a switchback trail, carrying flaming torches to the mountaintop ruins of a 2,500-year-old citadel. By the time darkness settled, the landscape around us was ablaze. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
“It’s the most important day of the year,” Hemen told me as he caught his breath amid energetic, shoulder-heavy dancing. “The fires are fun, but mostly Newroz is about time with families, and celebrating tradition.”
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Hemen’s father, whose shoulders also needed a rest, told me: “We love seeing foreigners here. We’re proud of this culture and when foreigners come, it reminds us of our history.”
The Iraqi Kurdistan of today suffers from a negative association with conflicts of the past, but in recent years I’ve noticed perceptions from European and North American travellers slowly changing. Increasingly I see groups idling in Erbil’s bazaars, or I find them at the 7th-century Assyrian monastery of Al-Qosh, or in the Yazidi temple in Lalish. I’ve been involved in a tourism project here, too, to develop a long-distance hiking trail in the region, and I’ve seen the tangible effect of tourist dollars on rural communities, even when footfall is still minimal.
The pandemic forced us to rethink how we travel. The grounding of flights gave an opportunity to put climate awareness at the centre of the industry. I would also encourage travellers to now consider new destinations, where tourism is more nascent. The benefits are clear: your money has more of an impact, and you get a deeper, more authentic experience.
Pavel, a German engineer I met on the mountaintop, had done just this. “I used to go to South East Asia,” he told me, “but during Covid I thought if I was ever able to travel again, I wanted something meaningful, and to know I was helping.” Pavel had hired a local guide, and said the Newroz festival had become his most-treasured travel memory.
He chose Iraqi Kurdistan, but you could choose anywhere. Our world is filled with places and people that have been overlooked, but which could benefit from sustainable tourism. I think we’re moving in the right direction. And if you do choose Kurdistan, we have Assyrian New Year next week, and another chance to welcome in a new dawn.
Leon McCarron’s book ‘Wounded Tigris: A River Journey through the Cradle of Civilisation’ is being published by Little, Brown in January 2023.
The Foreign Office continues to advise against all travel to Iraq, including the Kurdistan region
