Tajikistan
Tajikistan remains profoundly entrenched
in its past, whether in its Soviet history or in its traditional muslim
past. The hopes and roads leading to its future seems to be paved
with opium and heroin, and its paralyzing bureaucracy and coziness with
Moscow mark Tajikistan as perhaps the most fundamentally conservative
country in ex-Soviet central asia. I bet these regulars at a
teahouse in Hissar, a suburb of Dushanbe, have ordered exactly the same
thing from the soviet era, through the bloody 1990s civil war, straight
to today.
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Hissar bazaar. Fruit here was not as
tasty as in Kyrgyzstan or Xinjiang in western China.
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Those black skullcaps, by the way, mark
ethnic Uzbeks I believe.
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One of the most beautiful
natural sites in Tajikistan is the Iskander-kul lake, protected on all
sides by mountain passes which cut off Dushanbe and southern Tajikistan
from Khojand and northern Tajikistan.
Main entrance to the bazaar of Istaravshan, one of the oldest cities in
Tajikistan.
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You'd never suspect that Khojand was the
seat of the mighty Sogdian empire, which managed to hold off the
Russians and Chinese for centuries, until you saw this fortress.
Situated in the fertile and prosperous Fergana Valley region straddling
the Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan borders, it gets my vote for
the friendliest and most hospitable big city in Central Asia. Its
status as a good communist city under the USSR earned it the name
Leninabad, which some people still say from time to time.
This lovely building on the right is the
trader's hotel (Sharq) where I stayed in Khojand, around the corner
from the Panchshambe (Thursday) market and across from the main mosque
complex. I only paid US$1 for a bed here, ten times less than in
Dushanbe with its narcomafia-based economy.
Look, it's grilled shashlik (kebab)
everywhere! I mean, like, every few meters there's a shashlik
stand throughout all of central Khojand. That can mean only one
thing: Independence Day! This was the 25th anniversary of
the independence of Tajikiistan and for whatever reason, locals only
eat shashlik on this day.
A wonderful moment on the streets with
bands playing tunes on traditional central Asian horns.
Activities and crowds aplenty on the blocked off central streets during
Independence day. Not the large portrait of President Rakhmonov,
whose face is plastered everywhere that day.
Traditionally dressed Tajik girls zip by
on a float during the Independence day parade. They are carrying
not gold ingots, but chocolate, from their sponsoring factory.
Most of the floats represent labour unions and syndicates, as it was in
Soviet days.l
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