Ski festival to kick off in snowy Kurdistan mountains

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Both local and international skiers will take to the slopes on Saturday in an annual ski festival held in mountains surrounding the Kurdistan Region's town of Choman.

“The event will be under the close supervision of Choman’s mayor, in coordination with the Board of Tourism, and with four international companies acting as sponsors,” said the spokesman for the Kurdistan Region General Board of Tourism, Nader Rosty.

“The event will be one day long, starting at 10 am and ending at 4 pm,” he told the website of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

The town of Choman, on the border with Iran, is located 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Erbil. It has various sites and facilities available to tourists year round, including resorts, parks, rivers, waterfalls, and vast meadows and mountains for hiking when the snow clears.

In the festival, more than 20 international skiers, five Kurdish skiers from the district of Penjwin, and 10 others are expected to participate.

Kurdistan’s first skiing festival was organized in 2014 in the regional capital of Erbil, as tourists from neighboring countries and further abroad did their best to raise the profile of the winter sport in the region.

It will mark this year's second ski festival in the Kurdistan Region, the first being held on Jan. 23 in the mountains of Penjwin, southward along the Iranian border in Sulaimani Province.

Editing by John J. Catherine