This travelogue is just one part of my dispatches from Erbil. You can read them all on the project’s landing page here.
Thursday — Sept. 12, 2024
The Qaysari Bazaar is an absolute marvel. Nestled in the heart of old Erbil, this sprawling covered market sits in the shadow of the city’s ancient citadel, which is perhaps the oldest continuously inhabited place on earth.
My first visit was wonderful and wonderfully overwhelming.
Rose Gilbert WPLN News The Erbil Citadel, as seen from the Qaysari Bazaar. The citadel is a UNESCO heritage site, with evidence of human habitation dating back millennia, to the Neolithic period.
People have been buying and selling here for more than eight hundred years. Through the centuries, this place has grown and crumbled and built back upon itself, becoming a fantastic patchwork maze.
Rose Gilbert WPLN NewsConstruction to repair the fire damage is still ongoing in some parts of the bazaar.
High-ceilinged halls lead into twisting corridors lead into staircases lead into narrow alleys. Yellow brick merges into crumbling cement merges into old stone.
A series of terrible fires destroyed a huge portion of the market earlier this year. Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell sent a letter afterwards, condolences from one sister city to another. Looking at it now, I would’ve forgotten, except for the sound of workers hammering away in some unseen corner, still making repairs.
Within these walls, you can find anything and everything you can imagine.
Spices, fruit, sweets, piles of dried rose petals. Aleppo olive oil soap and hand-carved wooden cradles. Old cameras, books, kajal and henna. Honeycomb, yogurt, fresh produce. Gold, incense, cheap plastic toys, bolts of fabric, more gold. The air smells of perfume, cigarette smoke and grilled meat.
There’s also a mosque, restaurants, tailors, hotels, a gun repair shop and money changing tables stacked with cash from all over the world. There’s even a parking garage somewhere underneath it all.
Rose Gilbert WPLN News The bazaar is organized by its wares. This section is centered on clothing and accessories.
It’s not a particularly touristy spot, either. I mean, I definitely saw a couple fellow sightseers, but also moms pushing strollers, getting their groceries. Men, getting haircuts and buying cigarettes. And lots of little kids begging their parents for bubble guns or candy.
Most of the people I saw walked like they knew exactly where they were going.
I, on the other hand, soon got myself thoroughly lost: I’d take a turn, only to realize I’d been walking in circles; I’d see a stall I thought I recognized, only to find I was in a totally new and unrecognizable corridor.
It was an amazing way to spend an afternoon, and I know I’ll be back soon.
Rose Gilbert WPLN News A man selling lemons just outside an entrance to the bazaar.
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