Living in Sulaimaniya with my expat BF

Hey girl,
I live in erbil in kurdsitan iraq I always hear that sulymanya is much opener and more forigners live there and the kurdish themselves are openminded and are understanding of others lifestyle.
I didnt visit it yet to know if its true but will pay a visit soon if I know anything will post it here. But overall I can tell you in kurdistan everything is safe
Bon chance

Hi, I am expat and living in sulimaniyah more than a year. I guess there is no issue if you are not married and still living together. Normally no body cares as you will be most likely to live in an apartment (some society etc).  It is very small city with limited infrastructure.

Not agreed with "Fresh-Expat" as most of the expats live in Erbil (being capital with more facilities and more jobs). may be because she did not visit personally yet

All the best you can contact me in case anything needed

Thank you for you answers ! It's very helpful ! I'm looking forward to visit it 

I am a woman of indian origin and my fiance lives in Iraq. We plan on settling in the kurditan region.. kindly help me with in formation on the lifestyle, cost of living and kind of job opportunities i should expect if i move there.

Hey SIQ,

Cost of living it's a hard question. Everyone is different and it also depends on your location.
For Erbil, if you live in let's say older part of the city, with more locals around cost will be lower, renting a house or apartment  varies from something below 1000$ to 2000$, it depends on the size and if it's funished or not.
If you live in some new compound (english village, royal city, etc) there is more expats, offices, rich locals, means - higher rent (starting from 2000$ for unfurnished apartment and for example in royal city it may be even 2800-3000$), also your local grocery store will be most likely more expensive than small stores in older parts of the city.

I live in English Village, my company got me apartment so I only pay bills and food. Usually on everything we spend not more than 1000-1200$ per month for two people. That's including all treats going out to the bars/restaurants, etc.

About the bills:
- I pay service charge 200$ per month which is a standard in English village, Royal City, MRF, etc... it's for cleaning, maintenance, parking place if you need and if you need some help with drilling, electricity etc.
- Electricity: in English Village you have two bills: private and goverment, private was never higher than 15$, during winter when we heat apartment with AC it was 40$ for december, every other month 15$.
- Electricity for goverment: for generators when there's a blackout (and it happens a lot ) around 30$ per month
- Internet, this is difficult because it depends on your location and service provider. We have very good ADSL from Newroz, it's called X3 - >3mb/s for 60000IQD per month, other option if you don't have adsl is wireless wego, slower and with data limit but not bad price 40000IQD per month

Other things as I said it depends.
Couple prices:
- Fresh beef - 18000-22000IQD/kg
- Chicken - around 5000-8000IQD/kg often on promotion
- frozen chicken and parts are cheaper starts from 3000IQD/kg
- Bananas 1600IQD/kg
- Oranges 900IQD/kg
- Rice - 1500-2000IQD/kg, even cheaper if you buy big sizes
- Milk - 1500-2000IQD/l
- water - 1500IQD for 12x0,5l bottles
- juices 1l - 1500-2000IQD

Those are prices from store closest to me There is Carrefour in Erbil with lots of promotions, but still cheapest stores are the small ones close to local people or bazar.

Let me know if you need anything else.

you made my day... thanx for such an ela borate info... thanx a lot...

You're welcome. I was looking for same tips a year ago, so this is me returning the favour