Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak's photostream  

I am off to Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. I will be less online so my replies to any queries can be delayed

Iraqi Kurdistan. More : blog.swiatoslaw.com/?p=438

One of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world has survived millenia of war and empires falling, it witnessed barbarian Assyrians and atrocities of Saddam Hussein. Until 20th century it was located on the top of the mountain arising from desert plain, and within thick walls. Those times are gone. The citadel has been abandoned, ghost city, several years ago still alive as any timeless Middle Eastern labyrinth town, but while it survived centuries in this tumultous region, it could not survive modernity, arriving in form of concrete ugliness that now spreads until horizon, when you climb the walls of Qalat. What was Kurdish and regional is being harder and harder to see, obscured by most universal of disguises, wealth. It will soon be another Dubai, they say, and citadel’s ruins will be nicely renovated, dustless reminder of distant past.
More : blog.swiatoslaw.com/?p=404

Dede of Sahkulu Sultan Dergah, Istanbul. Sufi series continues. More : blog.swiatoslaw.com/?p=377

Behind the scenes of travelling. More : blog.swiatoslaw.com/?p=359