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.

Ostatnie lata ruin dawnego świata. Wkrótce Qalat, cytadela , serce kurdyjskiego Arbil, jedno z najstarszych stale zamieszkałych miast na ziemi stanie sie pieknym odnowionym muzeum regionalnej przeszłości, otoczonym morzem betonowego bogactwa. Dawni mieszkańcy opuścili ją, prace remontowe powoli sie rozpoczynają, życie ustapiło miejsca rodzinnemu spacerowi w weekend.