Unrecognized countries tourism and Transnistria tours? Halabja and Ahmadawa are within Sulaymaniyah’s district and can be visited on a day trip, even by public transportation. In 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranians took over a small town named Halabja and, in response, Saddam Hussein organized a massive attack with the use of chemical weapons, which killed thousands of people in a matter of seconds, mainly Kurds. The attack was condemned by many worldwide tribunals as a crime against humanity and a real genocide. Today, Halabja is just a normal town where you find a memorial to the victims of the attack and a museum, which is nothing else than Saddam Hussein’s House of Horrors Part 2. The museum is at the entrance of the city and it opens from 9am to 12pm and from 13pm to 5pm.
Transnistria is a thin strip of land wedged between Moldova and Ukraine. It is home to more than 500,000 people and has a parliamentary government, a standing army, and its own currency. A forgotten remnant of the Soviet Union, Transnistria is an unrecognized country hidden behind a heavily militarized border between Moldova and Ukraine. More correctly known as the ‘Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic’ (or ‘PMR’), Transnistria is one of a number of frozen conflict zones that emerged following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. One of the most notable things about Transnistria (and Tiraspol in particular) is the prevalence of Soviet symbology. While socialist monuments and busts of Lenin may still be commonplace in other former-USSR nations such as Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, Transnistria goes one step further, actually referring to itself as a ‘soviet state.’ Communist motifs appear everywhere from schools and universities, to the nation’s hammer-and-sickle flag. Discover more details at Unrecognized Countries Tourism.
Though Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia in 1999, there’s no end in sight for its political and economic reliance on Russia, the only major country to recognize the breakaway republic as a sovereign nation. The ruble is Abkhazia’s de facto currency, and—to the chagrin of many native Abkhaz—Russian remains the lingua franca. Russian guards patrol the conflict divide, and as recently as 2016, new Abkhaz-Russian military alliances were being formed, furthering Russia’s sphere of influence in the region and angering Georgia and the international community. But as one learns quickly in Abkhazia, foreign occupation and a burgeoning tourism industry aren’t mutually exclusive: According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Abkhazia, 3.5 million tourists visited in 2017 alone, some 90% of which were Russian (though many also visit from Turkey, Belarus, and to a lesser extent, Europe).
Many unrecognized countries such as; Somaliland, Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) and Transnistria even have their own unrecognized passports and currencies. They include; the Artsakh Dram, the Transnistrian Ruble and the Somaliland Shilling. Non-recognition is often a result of conflicts with other countries that claim those entities as integral parts of their territory. In other cases, two or more partially recognised states may claim the same territorial area, with each of them de facto in control of a portion of it. Read extra details at www.politicalholidays.com.