Sulaymani is known as the cultural capital of South Kurdistan since 1992. The development of Kurdish literature and arts significantly has been growing here. The city has interesting cultural spots to visit. One of them is Slemani Museum (Mozaxanay Sulaimany) in Saleem Street. It is the second biggest museum in Iraq after the National Museum in Baghdad. Slemani Museum is located in the city center within 10 minutes walking from the Palace Hotel (approx. 500 meter from the hotel).
The museum is open to the public with free entry from Sunday to Thursday, 10.00 AM - 02.00 PM. We can take pictures inside the museum (with no flash).
Even though most of the collections are not in good shape, they are quite interesting. They comprise of heritage from old civilizations such as Mesopotamian, Hellenistic and Ottoman periods.
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| Sculpted door ceiling - Hatra |
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| Some of the collections in the museum |
Besides visiting the museum, I managed to visit the Sulaymani public library (Ktebxanay Gshte Slemane) which is located next to the museum. It has alot of book collections in Arabic and Kurdish but very few in English.
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| The entrance of the library is on the left/right side |
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| Interesting statues in front of the building |
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| Open space inside the library |
Next to our apartment in Bakrajo, there is a public library too. Actually I was not sure about how it works as it seems not so many people came there and the building looks poorly maintained. However, as the library is just within 5 minutes walking distance from our apartment I decided to stop over.
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| Bakrajo Public Library (pic taken by Doug) |
I was glad that I made it. The library just received 20.000 English books from UK. When I got there, the staff was still struggling to sort them out. The library opens from Saturday to Thursday, 09.00 AM - 04.00 PM but sometimes they are closed already at 03.00 PM. I think the opening hour is quite arbitrary.
The books are stored in large racks in an air conditioned room. Most of them are used but still pretty good. I borrowed some books in which one of them is Everything You Know is Wrong: Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies.
