publicinsightjeff: Couldn’t help but reblog this photo. I traveled to Iraq in the ’90s, when Iraqi Airways was grounded by economic sanctions. The Iraqi Airways office on Sadoon Street in downtown Baghdad had been converted to an “International Businessman’s Center.” There you could place international calls, exchange dollars for dinars or send a fax to wherever. The men who dealt with currency exchanges and faxes (it was mostly women who sat at the phone desk, dialing for you and holding a stopwatch to time the call) were all out-of-work pilots. The receipts you got for whatever business you did there were Iraqi Airways catering slips. I wonder if that place is still there on Saddon Street, and if it has been converted back to a place for booking flights out of Iraq. Anybody?

publicinsightjeff:

Couldn’t help but reblog this photo. I traveled to Iraq in the ’90s, when Iraqi Airways was grounded by economic sanctions. The Iraqi Airways office on Sadoon Street in downtown Baghdad had been converted to an “International Businessman’s Center.” There you could place international calls, exchange dollars for dinars or send a fax to wherever.

The men who dealt with currency exchanges and faxes (it was mostly women who sat at the phone desk, dialing for you and holding a stopwatch to time the call) were all out-of-work pilots. The receipts you got for whatever business you did there were Iraqi Airways catering slips.

I wonder if that place is still there on Saddon Street, and if it has been converted back to a place for booking flights out of Iraq. Anybody?

(Source: iraqiana)

Notes

  1. joanna-qm-gurske288 reblogged this from publicinsightjeff
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  4. publicinsightjeff reblogged this from iraqiana and added:
    Couldn’t help but reblog this photo. I traveled to Iraq in the ’90s, when Iraqi Airways was grounded by economic...
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