There are also Kurdish regions in Iraq, Iran and Syria, and people from those regions are also represented in London. Kurds from different countries tend to congregate in different areas of London - with many Kurds from Turkey living in Hackney, and Iraqi Kurds in Hammersmith.

For decades, Kurds have been in an anomalous position in all the states they live in - with some Kurdish groups calling (and fighting) for a new state of Kurdistan, and others for autonomous regions and freedom from persecution within existing countries.

So the beginnings of a substantial Kurdish presence in London are well within living memory. At the opening of the Newroz celebrations one Greek councillor recalled the first arrival of many Kurds twenty years ago - queuing outside council offices in winter smoking cigarettes and wearing only t-shirts, because that is all that they were wearing when they fled.

The community quickly began to contribute to UK life. Whilst there is still hardship and unemployment in London, Kurdish people run long standing businesses, stand for office with the local council and are running a month-long festival of talks, exhibitions and events to celebrate New Year. Estimates vary about the number of Kurds in London, but it's somewhere upwards of 50,000.

So where can you look to find out more about Kurdish history in London?

Hackney Museum began an ongoing Kurdish Culture Heritage Project in 2004. It's a partnership between the museum, Kurdish Community members and Halkevi Kurdish-Turkish Community Centre. This project celebrates Kurdish heritage through stories, photos and videos and is one of the first comprehensive cultural projects to document Kurdish Heritage in a museum.

Hackney Museum held two small Kurdish exhibitons - Kurdish participants carried out interviews, wrote text, sourced photos, created video and sound footage - the first featuring interviews, a fashion show and songs by Dengbej storytellers, and the story of Kawa the Blacksmith and the origins of Newroz. The second marked the range of Kurdish contributions to life the UK . You can read more here For information on the project contact Hackney Museum.

Wood Green Library is hosting an exhibition of Kurdish photographs by Birgul Acikyildiz from March 14 - 28 2006, showing images of lives in Kurdish areas. There are also abstract artworks about Kurds by Haydar Akboga.

The theatre company London Bubble are making innovative use of oral history in their new show beginning on March 13 2006. Using real life stories from Kurdish Londoners, as well as Somali, Vietnamese and Polish communities, they have devised a show called "My Home" which will be performed not in a theatre, but in four ordinary houses across London. More details on the London Bubble website.

If you'd like to hear Kurdish music, and some of the dialects of different Kurdish regions, a concert at the Royal Festival Hall in June explores traditional songs using modern techniques.

Also in the winter of 2006, the Museum of London's major Belonging exhibition will include stories from Kurds in London, much of it collected by the community. Further details on this site in a few months.

In search of a backstory

We looked for a few places that would give a better grounding in earlier Kurdish histories.

The Lawrence of Arabia exhibition at the Imperial War Museum runs until April 17 2006, and includes a map Lawrence's proposals for dividing up the Middle East after the Second World War. His plans include proposals for separate governments in the Arab and Kurdish zones of what is now Iraq, but his suggestions were finally rejected. The map is small and scribbled on only very roughly in Lawrence's hand. But it has generated huge interest in the light of subsequent history.

Usually any account of a London community includes objects from the "ethnographic" museums - objects collected from all over the world, often by Victorians or earlier. But there are very few things marked as Kurdish in any London museum - even the British Museum only has a dozen or so recorded objects, which are not on display.

It may be that there has been little collecting from Kurdish areas. But the staff of at least one museum also speculate that there may be many more Kurdish objects in London museums that have not been identified as such, and are instead recorded as coming from the constituent countries of the Kurdish region. untoldLondon would be very interested to hear from anyone who has looked into this subject.

One person who definitely did visit Kurdistan was the Tsar's consul to Persia, Alexander Iyas. He travelled the region between 1901 - 1914, taking photographs wherever he went. Assassinated by Kurds and Turks in 1914, his photographs nevertheless miraculously survived, recovered from the corpse of a Turkish soldier. A display of these pictures will be showing at the Brunei Gallery for two months from October 2006. Admission is free, and it's a rare chance to get a picture of earlier life in Kurdistan.

Some useful Kurdish links

Timeline of Kurdish History

Kurdish collections we've found so far in London museums

A guide to Newroz 2006. Many of the events are listed in Kurdish and Turkish. For English speakers there is an excellent introduction to Kurdish New Year customs, and their Zoroastrian beginnings.

A list of Newroz events in English, as well as information about the Halkevi Turkish and Kurdish centre in East London

Join in with the Newroz celebrations

But for the moment, the happiest snapshot of modern Kurdish life is on March 24 2006 from 5pm in Finsbury Park, where the Kurdish community will be celebrating Newroz. All are welcome.