File talk:Kurdish woman daughters.jpg

I have just answered a query I received about this photo which I have answered on my Talk Page. I think it may be of interest to paste in the query and my reply below, John Hill (talk) 00:00, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

File:Kurdish woman daughters.jpg

Hi, could you add information in the file discription where you took the photo and the circumstances, so why they wear traditional clothes. Thank you. Greetings --Zulu55 (talk) 12:56, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your comment. I took this photo during a 6-week stay near Van, in eastern Turkey in 1973, where I was taking photos for an article on the Urartian civilisation for the National Geographic Magazine which, unfortunately, was never completed. At that time, there was considerable anti-Kurdish feeling and propaganda and Kurdish men were not allowed to wear their traditional clothes. However, it was common then to see Kurdish women in the region wearing their beautiful traditional clothes and not veiling their faces. Taking photos of the women was a pretty scary pastime, however. Although many women actually asked to be photographed, one woman warned me that, if their men caught me taking their photos they would kill me! The women generally positioned lookouts to warn us if Kurdish men were approaching, and then happily posed to have their photos taken, and thanked me after for doing so.

I was checked several times by the authorities and was actually roughed up a bit once and forced into a jeep and taken for hostile questioning in front of a mustachioed colonel in a large military base somewhere outside Van who spoke excellent English with an American accent (as I remember, he said he had trained in Colorado). I was only allowed to go free several long hours later after all my papers had been checked with Ankara.

A couple of times people tried to talk with me in the town of Van (including one old bearded man who spoke French) but were quickly surrounded on the street and hustled off before they could talk with me. I never discovered what this was all about - however, it must be remembered that, not only were the Turks having longstanding and ongoing problems with the Kurds, but Van is very close to the borders of Iran and the old U.S.S.R. and was, therefore, a very sensitive area.

I, and the people I was travelling with (my wife, step-daughter, and another family with 8 children), were forced to camp the whole time we were there in a small army communications base about 10 km south of the town of Van on the banks of beautiful Lake Van (just above the highway and a lovely small beach used by the soldiers) - presumably so they could keep a close eye on us. The authorities were clearly uncomfortable about me contacting and taking photos of Kurds and photographing archaeological sites, and obviously suspected me of some sort of nefarious activity. However, in the end, I was freely allowed to take all the photos I wanted and was generally treated very hospitably, by both the locals and the military.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I hope my story is of some interest. I will certainly update the information on the photo.

Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 00:00, 24 March 2015 (UTC)