Where to Stay in Bījār, Kurdistan Province

What is Bījār known for?

Bījār rugs have been famous since the Achaemenid era and are reckoned the strongest and longest-lasting made anywhere, built on a stiff, heavy wool foundation by wet weaving and beaten together with a special metal tool. Kurdish women in the surrounding villages weave them on looms set upright against the house wall. Height is the other thing.

The town sits high enough to be called the Roof of Iran.

What are the main landmarks in Bījār?

Qam Cheqay is the oldest castle in Kurdistan province, standing north-east of the town and probably dating from the Median era, still in use as late as the Sasanian. Genghis Castle is the younger ruin, raised during the Mongol invasion and now standing beside the Bijar to Sanandaj road. At Hasan Abad, also called Yasukand, the Emamzadeh Aqil survives from the Seljuk period with its dome collapsed and Kufic inscriptions inside.

The bazaar completes the set.

What is the history of Bījār?

Bījār appears in the fifteenth century as a village belonging to Shah Ismail, the first ruler of the Safavid dynasty, and it did not become a town until the nineteenth. The First World War nearly ended it. Russian, British, and Ottoman troops besieged and occupied the place in turn, and between them and the famine of 1918 the population fell to half what it had been.

Amir Nezam Garrusi, born here in 1820 to a Kabudvand family, is the town's best-known son: colonel of the Garrus Regiment in Mohammad Shah Qajar's failed Herat campaign, and later a diplomat in Paris who dined with Napoleon III.

Where is Bījār?

Bījār stands on high ground in the east of Kurdistan province, which is what earned it the name Roof of Iran, with Sanandaj the provincial capital to the west. The country is upland and open. Qam Cheqay lies north-east of the town and Hasan Abad to the east, and the villages of Bijar County spread across the same high ground where the carpet weaving is done.

What is the climate of Bījār?

Altitude decides the year here. Bījār is cold and snowy through a long winter and mild rather than hot in summer, which is the ordinary pattern of the Zagros uplands and unlike the heat of lowland Iran. Wool suits the climate as much as the trade, and the weaving season in the villages has always been the indoor half of the year.

How do you get to Bījār?

The road from Sanandaj is the main approach. It runs north-east across Kurdistan province and passes the ruin of Genghis Castle before it reaches Bījār, which is the seat of Bijar County and of its Central District, so the villages of the county come in to it along the same route. Roads also run east towards Hasan Abad and the Zanjan side.