Life in Sulaimaniya,Kurdistan, Iraq – Expat perspective

German Village Sulaimaniya

Dated : 25th Sep 2011

Well its been more than 6 months since I have landed here. So thought about sharing my experience for those of you who might be toying with the idea of coming to this place  for $$$$. I work for a large Telco .i.e. Asiacell Iraq. I arrived here with my wife and an 18 months baby girl in August 2011. I am living in a relatively upscale neighbourhood with company provided accomodation in a very nice compound with decent and well educated neighbors.  Recently I rented out a car , a simple Nissan Sunny Classic at  450 USD per month. This was just to give you my point of view for the discussion below and was not to flaunt anything that I have.

Sulemaniya or conveniently called as Suly is a city in northern Iraq not very far away from Iran border.  Most people arrive in Suly via Dubai through a budget airline flydubai which takes off from Dubai’s Terminal 2.  Airport in suly is a slighlty improved version of a bus terminal. However it is expected to improve soon (just overheard that ).   The first thing I noticed about Suly is the warmth and friendly nature of its people. People here are mostly nice, they are  willing to lend you a hand and love to chat with you.  City itself is small, quite peaceful with occasional protests off an on but nothing big. I came here in August and till October the climate was pleasant with extremely nice and cool breeze in the evenings.  May-July is considered extremely hot (like sun burnt hot) while Nov-Mar is extremely cold (like piercing cold) with raging winds.

The city is far from the  typical depiction  of dusty, war-ravaged and hostile Iraqi city. This city may be part of the Iraq but it has absorbed the culture of other countries, amongst them Turkey especially, because of the large kurdish diaspora overseas which has recently begun to move back. People are prosperus and style concious. Most of the women dress here in stylish western attire, though others slightly conservative ones are not that un common as well. Religion and religious extremisim is not for this city and as I can gauge from the situation must be highly discouraged from the government as well. Bars, discos and massage parlors can also be easily found, if you are looking for them.

The city infrastructure (incl roads, schools, bridges) is fairly good and is fast improving. Electricity needs of the city is mostly met by diesel generators. If you are working for a good company who has arranged for you a decent accomodation then  you should never face power and water shortage. There are very good housing communities (appartment blocks in a gated compound) in the city and more development is in progress.

You can easily rent a care here (Its left hand drive like USA) and can roam around the city without any issue. I even go out in night with no problem. There is an old style bazaar in the middle of the city and it serves your every need. There are also small and medium sized shopping malls serving most of your needs in the city. There are couple of good cinemas here showing latest hollywood movies so this is one thing you can do. In short one can live a normal and comfortable life here like any other place in the world.

Now the downside….

1. Not many people can converse in english so you may have to learn a bit of kurdi to explain numbers and quantiity .etc.
2. Hospitals are good for small /routine issues but for complications it is said to best avoid the hospital here. People here mostly utilize medical resources in Jordan, Dubai or India for complicated matters.
3. Not many options for clothings are available, so if you are planning to come here bring lots of dresses/suits along.
4. I am trying to find a day-care for my baby, unable to find it so far.
5. If you love food then this is not the place to be especially for the Pakistani/Indian style food. There are no KFC, Mcdonald or for that matter any international food chains here. I could not find decent Pakistani/Indian spices (masala), yes there are some low quality ones available here.
6. Not many choices except Nido is available for baby formula milk. So my baby is sticking with Nido and putting on unwanted weight .
7. Basic items like food and clothes are really expensive which are available some times twice/thrice the Dubai price. So if you are negotiating for salary, negotiate well.
8. You can not own a car here, however you can buy a car in the name of trust worthy Kurdi. There are no insurance options available here so if your merc hits a curb then your iraqi dream is down the kurdish drain.
9. There are few banks here but people do not trust the bank. Expats like us repatriate our dollars to foreign currency accounts back home.

Ok guys gotta get back to work, will share more latter.

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