Sulaymaniyah

- The mural of Muhammad Mahmoud (53 years old) in Darbandikhan district of the Sulaymaniyah governorate in the Kurdistan region of Iraq has preserved many memories and painful and joyful moments as well 23 years ago, the most prominent of which is a picture of a mother hoping for her son’s return despite knowing that the Aegean Sea swallowed him while searching for a safe homeland .

Mahmoud (right) with two of the shop's customers (Al Jazeera)

Take first photo

Mahmoud Sahib is the first idea of ​​this kind in his city and region, by taking pictures of customers and hanging them on the wall of his shop selling refreshments and ice cream, and he still remembers taking the first picture of a customer he passed by chance in 1999, to deepen his ambition further by taking daily pictures of his customers throughout the year.

The walls of the shop bear more than 5,000 photos taken at different times and times, and each of them bears a fleeting memory, whether sad or happy, as Mahmoud says in his speech to Al Jazeera Net.

He points out that watching pictures and remembering their moments is what he enjoys the most in this life, especially as he remembers people and personalities who left this world and became in the hereafter.

The most immortal scene in the memory of the shop owner is his father Mahmoud Yadkar (died in 2017), who bought the shop for the first time in 1970 and turned it into a café at the time, where the son worked for the first time in 1980, but he decided to make it special for selling refreshments and ice cream since 1999.

The walls of the cafe bear unforgettable memories of people, including an immigrant who drowned in the Aegean Sea (the island)

hard memory

Among the harsh memories that still linger in his mind is seeing an elderly woman coming to see the picture of her son hanging in the shop, who had drowned in the Aegean Sea while trying to seek refuge in Europe, and he describes this moment as very painful for him.

“I come twice a month, and sometimes three, to talk to my son in the picture, and I beg him when I am in my seventies and beg him to come back, but I do not know why he does not respond to my request.”

With these words buried in the feeling of a grieving mother, "Um Ako" talks about her feelings as she looks at the picture of her son hanging in the shop, who immigrated to Europe more than 6 years ago, but there is no news of him until today.

Like the mother, many come specially to the shop to see those dear to them, some of whom have died, and others who emigrated and did not return to this day.

Printing pictures per meter costs the shop owner about $40, and it seems that the shop’s chest has narrowed a little for several months and can no longer bear more memories after its mural was filled and there was no space to hang other pictures, and this is what prompted the owner to think about expanding the shop more, after he It included another shop, so that it became two shops instead of one.

The idea of ​​collecting photos in the shop added many vital features to Darbandikhan Street (Al Jazeera)

attraction site

Muhammad confirms that his idea is attracting many visitors to the judiciary to visit his shop specifically and see photos dating back more than two decades, especially those of well-known people in the city who left for Dar El Fna.

He explains that this idea was born out of his love and passion for embodying and documenting the memories and events that he lives on a daily basis. This talent has been chasing him since he was a high school student, and it is growing more and more every day until now, despite his fifties.

Aram, who is the owner of a barber shop next to the refreshment store, believes that this idea added many vital features to Darbandikhan Street, where the shop is located.

And the barber - in his talk to Al-Jazeera Net - recalls many irreplaceable moments while taking pictures of customers who passed by, one of whom came from Europe and said to the owner of the shop, "Take a picture for me, I may not return again, and if I die, to remain an immortal memory for my family and loved ones in the city." .