Mary, another Uzbek Fellow, mentioned in passing that she was taking a trip to Tajikistan in June and asked if anyone wanted to join her. I hadn’t talked to Mary too much during the year because she lived more than halfway across the country. What I knew about her though, I appreciated.
At first, I disregarded her offer. If you read my Oman blog, I wrote about how much anxiety I have around traveling. Even though Mary would be there, it still felt too much for me. However, I gave myself a pep talk, decided to lady-up, and tell her I was in.
I told Mary to plan a trip she was excited about, and I would be the happy passenger princess. She asked if I liked hiking, and even after Oman, I gave her an enthusiastic yes. It was decided our trip would center around getting out in nature as much as possible. The next thing I knew, the tickets were booked, and I sat with my travel anxiety heavy in my tum-tum until it was time to meet Mary at the airport in Tashkent.
June 8, 2024
When we landed in the capital, Dushanbe, it was a scramble to figure out what we were supposed to do. There were immigration papers scattered on counters everywhere. We found out later we probably should have grabbed one, but no one ever asked for them–so it worked out. Immigration checked Mary's passport and then just let her through. When they got to mine, the woman called over a supervisor. The super whipped out his cell phone, snapped a picture, and waved me through. I still have no idea why. Maybe because in my passport photo, I look like a man? Like, so much so, that I am often questioned in airports and train stations.
We grabbed some local currency, somoni, from an ATM and headed out to find a taxi. A, the Fellow in Dushanbe, told us how much to pay for a taxi and we haggled the driver down to an almost local price. A had offered to let us crash at her apartment while we were in the city and took great care of us babes in the woods while we were there.
A wasn’t quite back to her apartment, so we hung out at a beautiful cafe to wait. When we did meet up with A, we dropped our stuff off in her beautiful apartment, and then, she took us to try the national dish of Tajikistan.
Yemeni salta is my favorite national dish of all time, but I think Tajik qurutob is my second. Before I can describe qurutob, I need to tell you about qurt. Qurt is common across Central Asia, and it is a fermented milk product that is dried and shaped into little balls. All qurt is very salty, and some have fun additives like basil.
To make qurutob, you soak qurt in water to make basically an acidic, watery yogurt sauce which you pour into a large, flat bowl. On top of that, you add shredded pieces of layered, flaky bread called fatir, vegetables (normally onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, and herbs), and meat. On the side, you are sometimes served whole, uncooked chili peppers. You take a bite of the chili and then add in a scoop of qurutob as a single mouthful. The crunch of the chili and raw vegetables with the super tender meat, soft bread, and tangy sauce is life-changing.
I am thinking about flying back to Dushanbe for a weekend just to eat at that specific restaurant one more time before leaving Central Asia.
After eating one of the best lunches I have ever had in my life, A led us on a walking tour of the city. Dushanbe is a weird and beautiful place. The president is determined to build a ton of avant-garde structures to make sure his people remember him when he passes. These buildings are stunning, but when you see the state of the more rural areas of the country, you can’t help but wonder if that money could be put to better use elsewhere.
If you hate history, skip this next interlude:
One of the figures you see most commonly in Tajikistan, besides huge posters of the president, is Ismail Samani. Ismail Samani was a leader of Transoxiana and Khorasan in the 9th and 10th centuries. Transoxiana is named for the area “beyond” the Oxus River, now the Amu Darya. This area is composed of modern-day parts of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan. The name was first coined by Alexander the Great when he came to conquer in the 4th century BCE. Khorasan is composed of different parts of the same countries as Transoxiana but also includes parts of modern-day Afghanistan and Iran.
Ismail was born in Fergana, modern-day Uzbekistan in 849 into the Samanid Empire–Samanids were Persian Muslims. Tajiks still speak a version of Persian while other Central Asian countries adopted Turkic languages. To Iranians, Tajik sounds like an older, more formal version of Persian. Ismail’s brother Nasr I ascended to the Samanid throne and sent his brother to take control of Bukhara, also in Uzbekistan. Bukhara is one of the many areas of Uzbekistan that still has first-language Tajik speakers.
Nasr and Ismail had a falling out, but Ismail maintained control of Bukhara and started adding more lands to his empire. Ismail made Bukhara one of the most important cities in the Islamic world–and the world in general. Samanids had originally been Zoroastrians, but when they converted, they also took it upon themselves to convert everyone under their rule–Ismail was no different and he brought Islam to all the lands he conquered.
When Nasr I died, the caliph still didn’t recognize Ismail as the rightful heir. Ismail continued to fight and take new territories and was by all rights the official ruler, but the caliph never actually recognized him. He never paid taxes or tributes to the caliph, but he did send him gifts. Ismail died in Bukhara in 907 after a long illness.
Ismail was such a strong military leader that he never focused on defense. After Ismail’s death, his successors were not as strong. They struggled with the failing infrastructure and were constantly raided by their enemies.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan resurrected Ismail as their national hero. Uzbekistan chose Amir Temur as theirs. Nation-building is an interesting exercise in which it helps to have a common hero and a common enemy. I am less familiar with Tajikistan’s process of creating a national identity, but Uzbekistan is showing itself to be a real masterclass.
Back to travel blogging:
There is also an indoor bazaar where a woman quietly sells pork. She encourages foreigners, her best customers, to come over to her stall. Islam is the main religion, though in varying degrees of deference, across Central Asia. Pork is haram, forbidden, in Islam, but compared to Uzbekistan, there seems to be a much higher number of expats in Tajikistan’s capital. Then we went to the second floor of a Soviet-era building and found a bunch of little stalls selling old Soviet memorabilia. One shop owner and I talked in a mix of Russian, Uzbek, and Tajik and we bonded. He asked if we could take a few pictures together. I hope he’s well.
After wandering the city some more and admiring the fact that the only remaining drinkers of RC Cola all live in Tajikistan, A organized a night of traditional Tajik singing and dancing at a local restaurant.
June 9, 2024
A told us about a hiking group that goes out most weekends and signed us all up for a hike in the Zideh Valley near the village of Kalon which is just outside the capital. Some countries have more of my heart than Tajikistan, but when I saw the Zideh Valley, I was sure that this was what heaven on earth must look like. After the dry, arid climate of Uzbekistan, the soaring peaks covered in snow, the verdant hills, and the trickling of perennial streams were an awakening.
The villagers in Kalon were so kind and welcoming. They smiled at my poor attempts at Tajik–which I had been studying for a few months but never got very good at. I could already read Cyrillic, but I spent most of my time learning to write it.
I don’t want to show the village in an unflattering light, but it was the first example of how all the money wasted on edifices in the capital could have been better spent. In Kalon, they were extracting low-grade coal from the earth to try to survive the winter and even for my strong stomach, the full pit toilets were an exercise in perseverance. All governments must serve people, not egos.
As soon as the hike started, I knew I was in trouble. I learned then that I am a long-distance walker, not a hiker. They are very different. As this was the first hike of the trip, this didn’t bode well for Mary's outdoor adventure with me.
Eventually, the slowest of us decided to have a picnic and then meet the others back at the start of the hike. It was a great time to talk to some of the locals. What I have found in Central Asia is that people are always excited when I speak Arabic. In Uzbekistan, they say it. In Tajikistan, they whisper it. The person told me that the government had closed all the Arabic language schools.
In Soviet times, people were forced to be secular. Watching the rapid re-Islamification of Central Asia from the front-row seats has been a very interesting experience. Uzbekistan just started allowing hijabs in public institutions, and I have watched women in my classes slowly take them up. Traditionally, scarves in this part of the world were tied behind the neck, but now, women are choosing the Middle Eastern style. I had one girl cry that her parents wouldn’t let her be a hijabi and that she hoped her husband would.
Since last year, I have started seeing a lot more beards as well. Beards are still not allowed in schools, universities, or in government buildings, but they are common nonetheless. Men are forced to shave their beards for different functions, but they are growing them right back. Both governments say they are cracking down out of fear of Islamic extremism, but it hasn’t stopped people from embracing their religion.
The group met back up, took another run at the pit toilet, and then we were on our way back to the city.
At A’s apartment, we decided to hang out a while before dinner. I am staunchly against games, but I hate to be a party pooper. I agreed to join in. A whipped out a game called “Wizards”, and I genuinely think she changed my whole life. I ordered the game right there at her kitchen table and waited with bated breath for a month until I got home, so that I could collect it. I want to get the art from one of the cards tattooed on my body to have forever.
Note: If you see me in real life, I have Wizards on my person. I’ll play it anytime with anyone. I even taught my conversation club to play.
June 10, 2024
We didn’t know this at the time, but this would be pretty much the last time that our phones worked until we got back to Dushanbe. The next morning we met our driver, R. We thought he was also a guide, but it ended up being fine. I will say R did like to be contentious. I think Mary let me sit up front just so she wasn’t the target of his conversation. R started by telling us his German car was named Angela for Angela Merkel and that Russians “have a little Hitler” in their heart. I knew we were in for a wild ride.
Tajikistan is a very socially conservative country, which I have no problem with. I have no opinions on countries in which I don’t live, but R did seem to enjoy baiting us. He started strong with, “Do you think women should work?”
“I think that’s a decision that should be made as a family. I have no opinion on a different family’s choices,” I responded calmly. I even added, “I would love to not work.”
He grinned, “I don’t think women should work.” I said that was fine with me. Then he followed up with, “Why do Americans bother having kids if they just kick them out at 18? That’s not what a family should do.”
I could handle that, “My family is still close. But yes, culturally, we place more importance on independence.”
He eventually told us that his daughter attends an expensive private school. He said that it’s important to educate women because they spend the most time with children. He said that if you educate a man, you have educated the man. If you educate a woman, you have educated the next generation. I asked him if he wanted his daughter to go to college afterward.
“I will send her to college until she gets married, and then I will let her husband decide. If he wants her to work, then she will need an education,” he told me. I asked him if he wanted his daughter to work if he didn’t think women should. “I am just raising my daughter until she gets married, then she belongs to her husband.”
I cocked my head at him and asked, “Why bother having children if you just kick them out when they get married?” We didn’t talk for a while after that.
That didn’t end the conversations, of course. He went on to talk about how he met his wife in business school, but he won't let her work. She begged for a long time he said, but “Now she likes being home with our children.” He added, “If she needs a few somoni to go out with her friends, all she has to do is ask. Sometimes I give her money to go shopping.”
At one point, she called and asked if she could trim her hair, and he was incensed. “I told her no. I like her long hair and she cannot cut it.”
“If you trim your hair, you have less breakage, and then it can grow even longer.” He didn’t say anything and just kept his eyes on the road.
Again, I want to reiterate that I do not live there and have no skin in the game. But I am not good when someone is waving a red flag in front of me. Olé.
Foreigners have dubbed the Anzob Tunnel the Tunnel of Death. Just 50 miles northwest of Dushanbe, you’ll find the more than three-mile tunnel. Here are five facts about the tunnel:
The tunnel was opened in 2006 despite being incomplete. In 2014, Iran agreed to finish the tunnel and it reopened in 2015.
While the tunnel was being worked on, they still allowed travel through it. The driver just had to sign a waiver accepting the risks of flooding and poor air quality.
Before the tunnel existed, the route to the second largest city, Khujand, was four hours longer and drivers had to go through Uzbekistan. This route was impassable at different times due to snow and a tense relationship with Uzbekistan.
If the rest of the M34 highway is finished, it will run through Herat in Iran to Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. This planned route is known as the new Silk Road.
Driving in this tunnel still feels like you should sign a waiver. The lights don’t work, and your headlights can’t penetrate the air choked with exhaust and dust. You can’t see the car a few feet in front of you or any oncoming car until they are almost on top of you. There is still a problem with water leakage; at one point, we hit a huge puddle fed with flowing water.
Our goal for the night was to stay in Haft Kul, which is Tajik for Seven Lakes. Unsurprisingly, there are seven lakes. Between the third and fourth lakes, there was a landslide and we had to hike in. R told us we would want to stay at the fourth lake as it was the prettiest. It was nice enough, but when Mary and I hiked further the next day, I concluded that R just didn’t want to go past the fourth lake.
Mary and I had no idea what we were getting into. There were no stores and nowhere to buy water. Mary was just drinking out of the streams, but I had brought a filtering water bottle. I started filtering water for both of us. But despite being underprepared, it was still stunning.
Mary and I followed the road up a ways intending to visit another lake. Instead, we encountered some village kids and had a rousing game of soccer. The kids and I muddled through conversations in basic Tajik and English and we all had a blast. It started to rain, so Mary and I headed back to our guesthouse. We sat in a beautiful window seat and proceeded to pour our hearts out to each other.
The people at the guesthouse were kind. They made us chicken and potatoes, and R asked for something else, but that was all they had. There wasn’t any power for most of the day, but it came on just before we went to bed. The baby of the family was sick, and they had no medicine or ability to get him out to a clinic with the road closed. It looked like we were in heaven, but it was an important reminder not to idealize what looks like a simple life; “simple” lives are rarely simple.
June 11, 2024
Mary and I got up in the morning and started walking the road toward the seventh lake. We got pretty far before R showed up with the car. The road was unblocked. R insisted that the lake was far and that we should catch a ride with him.
In a few short minutes, we were at the trailhead for the seventh lake where we had to get out and walk anyway. I sat at the water’s edge, dipped my toes in the freezing cold lake, and read from my Kindle for a while. Mary wanted to hike to the end of the trail, and I was content to wait for her. When Mary got back, she asked if I wanted to do some deep breathing meditation with her at the lake. Not normally a meditator, I was still more than happy to join her. Sitting by that lake with Mary while we breathed in the fresh mountain air, cleansing our souls from baring our souls the night before, is still one of my favorite experiences.
We headed into the border town of Panjakent and got plov in the market there, and after that, we got some ice cream. R let us stop at the tomb of Rudaki. And you know what that meansssss! History time! Here are five facts about Rudaki:
Rudaki was born in 858 and died around 940 near the city of Panjakent. He is famous for being a court poet for the Samanid Empire and the first major poet to write in basically modern Persian.
His full name was Abu Abd Allah Ja’far ibn Muhammad ibn Hakim ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Adam al-Rudhaki al-Sha’ir al-Samarqandi. Which I just think is fun. “Ibn” means son and this was how people kept track of their ancestry.
Rudaki was probably blind, but no one knows if he was born that way or became blind later in life.
By the age of eight, Rudaki had memorized the Qur’an and was already writing poems.
Rudaki’s career lapsed in 937, and he died in his home village poor and alone. But his legacy was resurrected in the 1800s.
At Rudaki’s tomb, there is a small museum and library/bookstore. No one who worked there spoke any English, so we used broken Russian and Google Translate. It was one of those moments where none of us really knew what the other was saying, but we were all happy to be there and meet new people. The museum doesn’t get a lot of visitors, so it was a nice moment for all of us.
After that, R kept telling us he was taking us to an “alpin lagi” in Artuch. I thought that was just a Tajik phrase I didn’t know, but I realized after we got home that he was talking about an alpine lodge. English really is a terrible language. Mary and I sprung for a two-bedroom cabin with a private bathroom. We could have stayed in the lodge for a little less, but there was one shared toilet and shower.
After we unpacked, Mary convinced me to take the “short” hike up to the lake above the lodge. Mary is a mountain goat and just scrambled up to the top. I, on the other hand, encouraged her to go ahead and I met her at the top at my own (much slower) speed. I was grumpy the whole hike up, but I can’t deny the view of the lake and the valley below was stunning.
That night we had dinner at the lodge with the other foreigners also staying at the lodge. At the large table next to us, there was a Tajik family celebrating their grandmother’s birthday. They sent over some cake to share with us, and I joined in on the singing when they played a Tajik song I knew called “Chorbog’i Bolo.”
June 12, 2024
The next morning was the big hike that Mary had been looking forward to. Within a few minutes of walking down the train, my feet were already soaked, and I knew I just wasn’t going to have a good time. I gave Mary my filtering water bottle and sent her off on her own. The hike is supposed to take five hours for good hikers, but our friends who had been there a little before us, had taken closer to eight. I knew I would probably be waiting a while, so I made friends with a sweet little calf and then read.
Three hours later, just as I found a place in the sun to take a nap, Mary came back. She had completed the whole hike and had even had time to take her shoes off and dip them in the lake for a while before heading down. Later that afternoon, R showed up to take us to our next destination, Iskanderkul. As mentioned earlier, kul is the Tajik word for lake (actually a Turkic loan word). Iskander is how Alexander the Great is known in this part of the world.
There are two Alexander the Great myths related to this lake. The first is that the local population resisted his rule, so he diverted the river to rout them out. The second is that Alexander’s famous horse Bucephalus drowned in this lake. It’s more likely that Bucephalus died in modern-day Pakistan. What’s interesting is there is a large tree stump carved to look like Alexander, but he is depicted with a long beard. Alexander the Great was a clean-shaven bloke who also insisted that his soldiers be beardless.
There were a couple of hotels right along the lake, but we decided to go up into the valley above the lake and stay there. The valley was stunning with high jagged peaks, lush fields, and an abundance of poppies.
June 13, 2024
Mary and I took separate walks that morning and ended up on opposite sides of the river. I hollered over to her, and when she saw me, she walked across a sketchy bridge to get to my side. Then, she got stuck behind a fence that she scaled to head back to the car.
R drove to a trailhead so we could walk to the end of it and see a stunning waterfall. My foot kept getting caught in the other pant leg, and I thought this short hike might be the one to do me in. At this point, our relationship with R was pretty raw, and I tried being extra friendly, but I think he was just done with us.
At the start of the dirt road, there are a couple of Soviet murals, one of firefighters and one that says the name of the river, that I had seen on a YouTube travel video. I asked if we could stop and get a picture. R, realizing that he should try to be friendly also, stopped at another Soviet mural alongside a busy highway so I could snap another picture.
At this point, R noticed oncoming traffic flashing their lights indicating that there were police up ahead. He slowed down for a while but then decided to just go for it again. Of course, we got pulled over. R reached into his secret cash stash and handed a bill over to the police officer. The officer gave a jovial wave and we made it back to Dushanbe with no other mishaps.
AC met back up with us and took us to eat Chinese food before we crashed at her apartment again.
June 14, 2024
Even though Mary was the one who was drinking straight river water, I ended up being the one with food poisoning. A went to an event, Mary hung out at a cafe, and I spent the day in the bathroom. I only crawled out to eat dinner with the other Tajik Fellows.
June 15, 2024
We ended up leaving Dushanbe on the same flight as two of the Tajik Fellows, so we took a taxi with one of them. She sat in the front seat and talked with the Russian she had been studying over the past two years. She translated for us that just the other day, the man had been forced by police to shave his beard in the street.
The airport was a little bit chaotic, but we made friends with people in line around us. Then, we hung out at the airport before flying back to Tashkent. In Tashkent, I even had the chance to hang out with one of my lovely online classmates from the intensive Uzbek language course we had taken through Arizona State University.
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