The Rising Road Articles & Blog Posts

Jo Magpie, and her husband, Hrach, hitchhike across Europe.

The Road to Van

Turkey, Kurdistan, travel, hitchhiking, Ararat, mountain, adventure

“There is no work here,” he says. “At school, we learn only Turkish. No Kurdish.” It’s a story we will hear over and over again on this journey, now we’re in the part of Turkey unofficially known as Kurdistan. The Kurdish language was banned by the state until very recently. Town names were changed and Turkifised. Kurdish names were banned for children. It was illegal to speak Kurdish at school, or to print books in the language. It was a very successful campaign, most adults today either do not remember, or never learned the language.