Hasankeyf

Hasankeyf had one place to stay, the Hasankeyf Motel. The Motel was right on the Tigris (!) River and we had an awesome view from our room. The hotel cost us each about nine bucks a night. My only complaints were the hundreds of empty spider egg sacks on the ceiling and that it was freezing cold with no heater. It was so cold that I slept with my shoes on, and didn’t take them off for three days and two nights! Call me gross but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Hasankeyf was a wonderful place. It is a very small town with amazing ruins right up the hill. In the front of town there were a couple of cafes that were packed all day long. Men sat there drinking tea and playing cards. I don’t know if they were unemployed or if they were farmers that were in the off-season. The people of Hasankeyf don’t have a whole lot, but everyone was dressed very well. Most people were wearing nice coats and pants and a lot of people had nice suits. I didn’t see any poor people, and I also hardly saw any women the whole time we were there. The sun sets around 4:30 pm and by 6 the whole town is closed up. There is a single minaret in the middle of town that sounds the call to prayer. There is a huge stork’s nest on the top of it.

All day and all night Turkish military was blowing through town in big tanks. Trucks full of soldiers would roll through with huge mounted guns pointing in all directions. It really was ridiculous. Maybe if the military wasn’t waving guns in everyone’s face there wouldn’t be as much conflict.

Hasankeyf is slated to be underwater in a few years under the GAP project. The Turkish government is building a large dam on the Tigris River that will flood this whole valley. This will displace around 40 Kurdish villages and submerge this valley which is extremely rich in Kurdish history. A man we talked to explained that in Hasankeyf they are no longer allowed to build any new houses with electricity. They have been waiting for a few years to be kicked out, and he was still hoping that they wouldn’t. It would be a huge tragedy if this happened. This is just another instance of the Turkish government trying to screw their Kurdish population. This is a terrible thing to do; I hope that they are somehow prevented from going through with it. I’ve known about this situation for a while, and I really wanted to travel through this area knowing it might be gone soon. It was kind of bittersweet seeing such an amazing place that might be destroyed.