Humans of Kurdistan
The "Humans Of Kurdistan" project aims to present the cultural diversity of the country. A look at the faces but also the stories that lie behind each of them.

May 8, 2022

“I have been doing shoe repair work for 35 years. I have ten children who I have raised with this job. I have been repairing shoes since my childhood. There used to be many shoe repair workshops, but now 3-4 workshops remain and a few of the old shoe repairers. We did not have such a machine before; we worked by hand. There were needles, threads, nails, hammers but nothing else. Now the technical conditions are better, but there is no work. Today, one does not bring their shoes here and does not repair them for 15 lira. At that time, people were coming from the village, and there were work. There was no machine, but we had more workload. Things are fine now, but sometimes we wait until the evening and still receive no customers. Twenty years ago, our work was excellent, but in recent years it has decreased. I was going to close my workshop. However, after the economic crisis, the price of shoes increased a lot. Since shoes are so expensive now, residents repair their old ones. Our work is on the road to recovery. Many professions have been lost in history. The shoe repair business was also on the verge of extinction. However, now our profession is certainly getting a lot of attention because of the economic crisis”.