I lived in Einkawa, the Christian suburb of predominantly Muslim Erbil.
Since most of the foreign people at the city are at least nominally Christian,
or, as in my case, just irreligious, I guess they decided to house us where we
could hit a mass now and then, or more crucially, buy some booze at one of the
many liquor stores that are not allowed in the rest of the city.
Einkawa stretches just north of the city over the flat Mesopotamian plain
without a single physical feature to demarcate it – no waterway, hill or even a
copse of trees. It likely has some history to it, but as it’s a collection of
similar-looking modern concrete buildings and homes, it certainly doesn’t look
like it. A typical Erbil house is two-storeys, abuts its neighbors, has a
rather gaudy marble facade and a high front wall, behind which is a parking
area and tiny garden with maybe an orange tree. They line the side streets
while stores, hotels, restaurants and several churches and the odd neatly kept
park, always fenced in barbed wire and locked, are concentrated along the
arteries. Most of the stores cater to builders and renovators as Einkawa, like
the rest of the city, is expanding rapidly. The streets form an erratic grid
that’s laid out such that it’s easy to get lost. It doesn’t help that there are
no addresses, and as nobody knows street names, directing a taxi driver
requires lots of gestures.
My building is was a luxurious villa, built a few years ago as a hotel. The
owner, from Lebanon, has a luxury suite on the top.The villa was equipped with
the basics – generic furniture, a little kitchen, satellite TV and wifi. It’s
like living in a modest hotel, except the power goes out recurrently, which
generally leads to a noisy generator starting up – Iraq is infamous for its
challenged power grid. The wifi is abysmally slow and occasionally the stench
of the septic system wafts up through the drains. Still, I’m mostly not
complaining: I got a decent-sized apartment with a window facing the street
with all luxurious facilities.
Einkawa is the area of the city for nightlife, although compared to any
western city the fun spots are thin on the ground. Besides a few overpriced
hotel bars, the Deutscher Hof is the place to be, especially Thursday night –
Friday and Saturday are the weekend here. It has a variety of good German draft
beer and dishes like bratwurst and schnitzel. The waiters are smiley spanish
and the clients are mostly expats in the oil business and their Kurdish
workmates. Thursday nights there’s a barbecue and entertainment, which, one
Thursday when I was there, included a bonfire and fireworks. Everyone got drunk
and a few of our staff from the Moscow asked my permission to propose my female
staff. I told them they didn’t need my permission, which they took as a yes.
One of them, a flirty southern belle from Turkey told me later she got four
proposals, “All of which I regretfully declined,” she said with a flattered
chuckle.
Many upscale Western brands, as
well as an array of authentic fast food franchises, including: Fatburger,
Coffee Bean, and Chester’s Chicken can be seen all over Erbil. My favorite
choice was Texas Chicken in Einkawa..
Erbil is a city of strange and inexplicable mysteries that I spend my
leisure time trying to solve. Here are three:
One: Why is there a new hotel on almost every corner? These are decent
hotels with rooms going for around $100 a night. They all look unoccupied.
Well, it is winter. First I thought that entrepreneurial sorts were throwing
them up because the media was calling Erbil the “New Dubai” and they expected
tourists to descend in hordes. Maybe, but Erbil is not Dubai: no beaches, no
indoor ski slopes, no tall hotels that look like sailboats. Not yet anyway.
Then when some of my students told me that something like 98% of all adult
Kurds are married and divorce is rare, I though, aha! So the hotels are for
some much needed hanky-panky! My good friend Mohammed, frowned and said, “No, the hotels are for the Arabs! They come up from Baghdad and southern
Iraq in the hot weather because it’s cooler and the mountains are close by.
They love it up here!” Well, stay tuned and we’ll see in a few months if all
these hotels are teeming with Arabs.
Two: Why is everything so expensive?Because his is the
“New Dubai!,” But things cost even more here than
Dubai. It’s maybe complicated why, but maybe not. Kurds are not bargainers. You
pay what they say, and maybe they’ll give you money back. That has happened to
me several times in the bazaar and with taxi drivers. When I went to a dentist,
he told me I needed a filling replaced and my teeth cleaned. He said $200. But
when he finished the job – in about 15 minutes – he only charged me $100.
Apparently this is how Kurds do business. They start off with a high price and
then maybe lower it. But maybe not. I know the friendly guy selling veggies at
his shop down the street makes up the total every time I buy stuff.
Sometimes it’s a bargain, sometimes not. This is likely the only place in the
world where a new car driven off the lot increases in value. They leave
stickers on the windows and plastic on the moldings and sell it a few weeks
later for at least $500 more. Kurds are always selling their cars and buying
“new” ones for more than what you’d pay at the dealership. Go figure. And then
go into any of the new Starbucks-style cafes around town and have a latte for
$8 and add and brownie for $7. Why? I asked one of the business prof. Because
of inflated land values have driven up rents and prices, he said, adding
cheerfully that we may soon be in for a crash – just like Dubai!
Three: Why is public transit almost nonexistent? Oh, there are a few buses
around, but hardly anyone is on them. Everyone drives. The sidewalks are mostly
an afterthought and few people walk anywhere. I’ve walked around the city quite
a lot and rarely meet anyone. Okay, we’re sitting on a lot of oil here, but
still — there are poor people here too. But they mostly live in the centre
where everything is concentrated and quite walkable. And this is a family
oriented society – women stay mostly at home unless their husbands take them
out to the mall, and kids get driven or bussed around. One day a couple of my
collegues decided to take a bus and hailed one but the driver wouldn’t let them
on. He pointed at a taxi. Okay,it’s true, they’re cheap – it’s $5 to just about
anywhere in town. But still – a big city without decent public transit? Come on!
