ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Naila Buyuk was at a party in Crimea when she spotted a young man across the room. He spoke to the people around him in a language that was not her native tongue, Russian, nor one of the other languages commonly spoken in the Soviet Union. At that party, teenage Naila got to know the Kurd in exile who would eventually become her husband.
Ali was one of around 500 Peshmerga fighters who accompanied Kurdish general Mala Mustafa Barzani to the Soviet Union (also known as the USSR) after years of war with the Iranian and Iraqi governments in order to obtain autonomy for Kurds. While spread across the Soviet Union for university study, some of the companions would meet the Russian women who would become their wives.
As conditions changed in Iraq, many of the Kurdish fighters brought their wives and Russian-born children home with them. Naila and two other Russian women spoke to Rudaw English about their decision to marry Kurdish fighters and spend most of their lives in what is now the Kurdistan Region, as well as the pride and suffering they experienced.
Around 250 Russian women from different parts of the Soviet Union married Kurdish men, according to data collected by writer Rekan Mizuri, who wrote a book about Russian women in the Kurdistan Region in 2010.
Only ten or so remain, 81-year-old Naila estimated, most of whom are old and face serious health conditions.
Historical crossing
Barzani and his companions had faced much adversity in the 1940s, including the downfall of the Republic of Mahabad and harassment at the hands of both the Iranian and Iraqi forces. He made the decision in May 1947 to flee to the USSR, along with the companions that were willing to join him. After a dangerous journey through the mountains of Iran that left many dead, around 500 of Barzani's companions made it to the USSR – including the General.
Their first few years in the Soviet Union were difficult. Because of political disagreements, Barzani and his companions faced imprisonment, separation, and displacement. However, the death of USSR ruler Joseph Stalin on March 5, 1953 changed almost everything. Barzani held a sit-down strike for a few days in front of the palace of new Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev, demanding an end to the oppression and the beginning of state assistance for his companions. Khrushchev, who wanted to break from Stalin-era rule, decided to do just that, and even provided Barzani’s companions with the chance to study. It was with this new lease on life that many of them met the Russian women they would marry.
That Naila might marry a Kurdish man was not an impossible prospect, because two of her sisters had already married companions of Barzani. This was how she ended up at the party at which she would meet her future life partner.
“I went to a party with the husband of one of my sisters. They [Ali and his friends] were 19 people, and they were studying at college. They came to the party and began speaking in Kurdish. I didn’t know them, and I didn’t understand their language. I didn't even know that they were Kurds.”
Ali was living in Tashkent, once one of the biggest cities in the Soviet Union, home to many Russians, and now the capital city of Uzbekistan. Despite the physical distance between her and Ali, they would grow closer every day, and eventually got married on May 2, 1958. One of Barzani’s companions, Mam Hussein, was a clergyman who officiated the marriages of both of Naila’s sisters. “He asked for my hand in marriage on behalf of Ali, and did the religious ritual as well,” Naila said.
Every Peshmerga’s marriage was conducted with Barzani’s consent, Naila said. “They didn’t do anything without his knowledge.”
Naila was from a Muslim family, and so did not have to convert to Islam – a big decision that Russian women who came from other religious backgrounds would face when marrying one of the Kurdish fighters.
New country, new pain
By 1958, great change was taking place in Iraq. On July 14, Abd al-Karim Qasim led a coup that ended decades of monarchy rule in Iraq, and he took charge of the new republic. He issued an amnesty for Barzani and his men, who returned to Iraq in October, along with some of his men – and their new families. Their ship set sail on March 31, 1959, docking at a port in Basra, southern Iraq, Naila recounted.
“We were received by people in Basra, then we got on a train to Baghdad where we were received by Mala Mustafa. We were taken to Erbil on April 18.”
From Erbil, the new arrivals were sent to live in different locations across the province, Naila said. “We stayed in Shaqlawa for nearly a month. I had no children at the time. Some men and women returned to their villages [in what is now the Kurdistan Region], but we remained in Shaqlawa.”
For Naila, leaving the Soviet Union meant leaving behind her two sisters, who, along with their Barzani husbands, did not come to Iraq.
On May 9, a heavily pregnant Naila and her husband were moved to Erbil’s Badawa neighborhood, where there were already six Kurdish-Russian families. She gave birth to a son, Azad, on May 16. It took her a while to learn Kurdish “because there were more Turkmen [in my neighborhood] in Erbil,” she said.
They then moved to Mosul, where her husband was to start a new job. “My husband began working in a public agriculture office in Mosul on May 26. He had completed the agriculture department in the education college [in the Soviet Union]. We stayed in Mosul until April 1, 1960. My husband later moved to Erbil [for work].”
Her second son, Izzet, was born on July 4, 1961. Raising him came with new difficulties.
“I spoke to my son Azad and to my husband in Russian. When my son Izzet was born, there was a problem… he spoke fluent Kurdish with other children on the street, but when he came home he’d become mute. It made me give up my language and learn Kurdish.”
Things were going well until the September 11, 1961 uprising, most widely known as the Aylul (September) Revolution. The following nine years of brutal war between Barzani’s Peshmerga fighters and the Iraqi forces would result in tens of thousands of casualties, until an agreement between General Barzani and Baghdad was reached in March 1970. Naila's husband, who had previously shown loyalty to Barzani by following him to the Soviet Union, joined the Kurdish leader in fighting the Iraqi army near the border with Iran, leaving his wife and sons alone in Erbil.
“We were strangers in Erbil, we didn’t know anyone. We didn’t have our husbands with us,” she said, pausing now and then while talking about a time of suffering.
In 1963, a notorious Iraqi Army unit known as Haras al-Qawmi (National Guard) targeted the Russian women whose husbands were on the frontlines.
“Haras al-Qawmi would come and knock on the door at 1 am to check the house. They suspected our husbands were home. We’d go out while the children were asleep until the guards checked the house,” Naila said. “The guards would keep checking these houses for three days.”
“On the fourth day, a military lorry came and took us all to a jail [in Erbil]. We were 22 women and 62 children. We remained in jail for six months,” Naila said.
It looked as though there would be no escape for the families, until the Soviet Union intervened.
“The Russian embassy did not stay silent. He [Soviet ambassador to Baghdad Mikhail D. Yakovlev] called Badradin Ali [Governor of Erbil] and asked why we were jailed. Badradin said that the power lies in the hands of Haras al-Qawmi, and that he only implements their decisions. It wasn’t true, but it was how their policy worked. After six months in jail, we requested our release, as some of our children had to go to school.”
The government decided to release them, but on the condition that they moved into houses that would be surrounded by guards. They tried to find homes for 16 days but failed, because people feared a reprisal from the regime if the Russians were their neighbours.
It seemed as though their time in jail would not end, until a Turkmen came to their rescue.
“He paid for the bail of all 22 women and 62 children to be released. We will never forget this.”
The man took the women and children to the Erbil citadel, where he had a house with five to six rooms. They could not live there freely, because they were still subject to the government’s condition for their release. “We couldn’t even go to the market without a police escort,” she said.
The surveillance continued until the Baath Party’s Iraqi wing carried out a coup against Qasim on February 8, 1963, an act best known as the Ramadan Revolution. The rule of Haras Qawmi was over; the Russian women and their children were free at last. However, some of their other problems persisted.
“We had no money and no one to feed us,” Naila said. “We also had no relatives and didn’t speak the language [Kurdish]. We visited Badradin Ali and told him about our condition.”
The governor decided to give them a small monthly allowance. Sheikh Sulaiman, the deputy governor, told them to inflate the number of children they had so that they would receive more rations, but this was still not enough to make ends meet. The women decided to go to Ranya, Sulaimani province to meet Barzani; instead, they were received by an aide of Barzani, who informed the Kurdish leader of his guests’ circumstances.
“He was one of those men who had been to Russia. He asked what we wanted and informed him [Barzani] of our condition. Mala Mustafa decided to increase the amount of money we were given every month.”
“Barzani was faithful and asked us what we needed,” she said.
"Don’t say that you’re strangers – you aren’t,” Naila recalled Barzani as saying. “Even if we have just a piece of bread, we’ll share it."
Naila’s husband was still fighting close to the border with Iran, in Haji Omaran, where she and her children would head every January or February and stay for about three months. The years up until the autonomy agreement were of real suffering, Naila said.
At the time, Naila and her children were spending the rest of the year in Layluk village, Erbil province. When she returned from Haji Omaran, she found out that her house had been robbed – their neighbor the prime suspect. “They even took my photographs and certificates, and the house’s essentials too,” she said; most of what she had left as reminders of her life in the USSR were gone.
For Naila and her children to keep heading to Haji Omaran to see Ali put them in real danger. Ali and his elder son, Azad, had joined the rebellion in Haji Omaran while Naila and Izzet returned to their house. “I heard that the warplanes had bombarded Galala bridge,” Naila said. “When I heard the name of my son among the casualties, I was destroyed. ‘I lost my son,’ I cried.”
People began fleeing to Iran, fearing a new wave of oppression by the Iraqi government. Naila did not want to go to Iran, but she did go to Haji Omaran to join Ali, who was fighting the Iraqi Army. “I had come to Haji Omaran for two weeks but had not seen my husband. Later, a brother of his came and said that Idris had ordered us to move to Iran,” she said, referring to Idris Barzani, the son of General Barzani.
She now had no choice but to join the crowd and head to Iran. Upon her request, she was placed in an area near the Iraqi border. After dotting around Iran for a short time, she insisted on returning to Iraq, but was warned by the Peshmerga that she could fall victim to a new Iraqi regime campaign against Kurds.
The Aylul uprising agreement did not last long, with the Iraqi regime resuming attacks on the Peshmerga, pushing them closer and closer to the Iranian border. Barzani launched a new rebellion in 1974. He was reportedly supported by the Iraqi government’s foes at the time, including the US, Iran and Israel. The rebellion was strong; Peshmerga fighters were fighting to the death, believing that the international military support would continue. However, international support ceased, and Barzani’s allies turned their back on him. When Iraq and Iran announced the Algiers Accord in March 1975, Kurdish hopes for autonomy were crushed. As per the deal, Iraq conceded part of Shatt al-Arab waterway to Iran in return of Tehran’s suspension of its support to Peshmerga.
Naila and her family returned to Iraq along with other Kurds in December 1976, but they were displaced to Ramadi by the Iraqi regime. In what was semblance of stability after years of displacement, they stayed there until March 19, 1983, when her husband was transferred back to Erbil, where she has lived ever since.
Her husband was injured during the March 11, 1991 uprising in Erbil. He died exactly 12 years later, from complications relating to diabetes and high blood pressure.
Naila visited Russia three further times, most recently in 1999. The first time, 12 years after she left Russia, “my relatives asked me not to return [to Iraq],” she said; they told her they would feed her and her children, but she refused. Pleas from her family to get her to stay grew fainter each time she went back. “Last time, my relatives did not ask me to stay in Russia,” she said. “Now they come here regularly.”
She currently lives in Erbil ,with her daughter Khalida and son-in-law Hamad Jaafar – who worked at the Haji Omaran border crossing for some years . She does not want to return to Russia permanently, but watches Russian TV shows and follows news about the country. She has close relations with the other few remaining Russian women in the Kurdistan Region, but the spread of coronavirus has brought their meetups to a temporary end.
“I can’t sit with my neighbors, I don’t know what to talk to them about. But if I talk to someone [from Russia], I could talk from dawn to dusk.”
Sewe (Apple)
Svetlana Ayl Angina, from the town of Tambov in central Russia, also married one of Barzani’s companions.
Born into a communist family in 1938, she lost her parents at an early age and was brought up by her grandmother Antonina. Peshmerga fighter Omer Shink, a student at a local college, managed to get to know Antonina and asked her to convince her granddaughter to marry him.
“She told me that he is a good man of virtue. She also said that he did not drink alcohol,” Svetlana said.
There was an eighteen-year age difference between Omer and technology student Svetlana. Asked if she wanted to marry him, she replied that she was only 18 and “didn’t know anything”, but she warmed to the idea.
“He came to our house one day when I was a student. He was sitting in the kitchen [with my grandmother], and I was sitting in my room doing my homework. I say we were destined to be together.”
The two married on November 4, 1958.
Svetlana was not religious when she married Omer. But when they arrived in Barzan in 1959, she converted to Islam in the presence of Sheikh Ahmed Barzani, the older brother of General Barzani.
“My husband didn't pressure me to convert to Islam. We went to Sheikh Ahmed and asked him to teach us how to pray.”
The couple lived in Qushtapa, Erbil province, where Svetlana worked as a nurse. Omer was a good husband, she said; “he wouldn’t let me do domestic work like serving water or taking care of the children,” instead doing these tasks himself.
Unlike Naila, Svetlana had her husband at home for much of the first few decades of their life together in Iraq. But Omer and two of their sons, young men Ahmed and Sulaiman, were killed during Saddam Hussein’s campaign of the ethnic cleansing of Kurds in Iraq, called Anfal. She, her son Sardar, and her four daughters – Shamam, Galawezj, Gulnam and Layla – survived. She has been both a father and mother for their children ever since.
Svetlana now lives in the village of Sako, Erbil province, with Sardar. People call her Sewe (Apple) because they cannot pronounce Svetlana. She does not want to return to Russia, she said, because she “won't exchange my grandchildren for anything.”
From time to time, she would pause and apologize while recounting her story. She said she did not want to talk about part of her past unless absolutely necessary, because it brings back her pain.
Sveta Alexandra
Sveta Alexandra was born in the Samarkand province of the USSR on April 14, 1937. She was a scientist working in a state laboratory when she met Haji Mala Ali, a companion of Barzani, in 1957.
The same year, they got married and she gave birth to her daughter, Natasha.
Ali was good with her, she said, but though her husband taught Kurdish at schools, she said she learned Kurdish herself.
Natasha was the only one of Sveta’s children born in the Soviet Union. Soon after arriving in Iraq, she gave birth to Ali, Leyla, and Ayub, who were born in quick succession. Like Svetlana’s family, they lived in relative peace until the horrors they were met with in 1983; Ayub and his father were killed in the Anfal campaign, and Sveta and her other children were jailed for a year.
Now in her eighties, Sveta lives in the Walatzheri area of Barzan with her son Ali, who said he feels at home in Kurdistan.
“I’m fully Kurdish. I haven’t even learned Russian, because kids would tease us when we spoke,” he said. “I don’t have a Russian passport, and I’ve never even been there.” It would be possible for him to get a passport, he said, but he does not want one.
