Keeping its secrets

Asia » Tajikistan » Dushanbe
July 20th 2014

Published: July 20th 2014

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Weir travels

the nation-founder, or so he's regarded

Ismoil Somoni, otherwise known as Isma'il ibn Ahmad, the Samanid amir of Transoxiana and Khorasan

Dushanbe – the capital of Tajikistan for those who haven’t devoted their recent leisure time to scrutinising maps of Central Asia – is a city that doesn’t let you in easily. It doesn’t readily open its arms to receive the stranger. There’s no tacit “Hey, come over here! This is where it’s at!”. It’s not that it’s at all unwelcoming to the visitor; it’s just too busy having its own life to stop and accommodate yours.

Or such has been my impression after three days here. Not the longest period of time, I’d be the first to admit, particularly when I’ve struggled to wake much before midday, recovering from the challenges of the last few months and replenishing the batteries for the adventure that lies ahead. But even so.

Maybe it’s the language – and alphabet – barrier, though I’ve frequently winged my silent thanks to the wonderfully-named Aldyth Cadoux and her valiant efforts to teach me some very basic Russian over the course of one term in 1984.

Maybe there’s a cultural barrier, though the city is far from adamantly one thing or another.

The lack of signage is one indicator of this secrecy. As my

home, sweet home...when we eventually found it!

Atlas B&B Guesthouse, Dushanbe

taxi driver drove me round in ever decreasing circles in search of the Atlas B&B Guesthouse at 63 Mirzo Rizo street, I wondered if I’d ever be able to navigate my way out of this maze-like residential suburb. Even when he tracked it down with the help of three different locals who clearly had nothing better to do at 5 am, it had no name outside, nor even a number on the door; we simply guessed that “63” might be the one next to the door labelled “61”.

I went in search of somewhere to eat that evening, thinking that, surely, on the way into town I’d fall over something. But there was nothing obvious and/or open. Street food doesn’t seem to be a big thing here, other than the very occasional kebab-like stall, which, accustomed to the Indian food-at-every-corner-and-several-places-in-between approach, I am finding a little strange. There are markets – the Green Bazaar is the closest I’ve come to finding the city’s beating heart – but you have to buy your own ingredients, which can lead to a slightly random result, as I found yesterday evening with my oversized chapatti, two hot and salted corns-on-the-cob and a kilo

squirrel heaven...

Green Bazaar

of nectarines (the stallholder refused to sell me any less), as well as a couple of carrots that I’d been donated by the potatoes-onions-carrots stallholder, who clearly despaired of getting me to hand over money for any more. I failed to find anything like cheese (I gingerly tasted the contents of a vat of whipped white stuff, only to find it was almost-liquid nougat, not quite what I was after), and had to beg the indulgence of the owner of the local sells-everything-and-a-deli-shop-to-boot while I unwrapped and tentatively sniffed at what I hoped would be cheese (it was, a very mild sheep version).

That first night, I only found what I belatedly decided, in the absence of anything else, would be my intended destination, the strangely-named Traktir Konservator, thanks to a local feeling sorry for me. I was clearly looking particularly puzzled, part way up one of the main thoroughfares, Rudaki, when an elderly man stopped, backtracked and asked where I wanted to go (or so I assumed he was asking). I showed him the name of the place in my guidebook. Unsure if he could read the Roman alphabet, I added the often-ubiquitously understood “restaurant” by way of

not quite your local Starbucks

Chaykhona Rokhat, a Dushanbe classic, and a great place from which to people-watch

explanation. But his continuing incomprehension wasn’t going to bring his chivalry to an abrupt end. Instead, he took it upon himself to find me an “Anglisi” speaker, and, after six or seven abortive attempts, collared a Swiss-Australian agronomist (who else?!) who took me under his wing, explaining kindly that it wasn’t well sign-posted even if you knew where you were going. (He was right: it was only the restaurant’s outdoor lights which suggested there might be something interesting down this particular alleyway.)

When I emerged from my Ukrainian dinner later that evening, I was a little thrown to find that streetlights were somewhat noticeable by their absence, or at least by their sporadicity (if that’s not a word, it should be!). I’d recognised earlier that I was a little out-of-practice with this travelling thing – I’d forgotten to check the approximate exchange rate, so had no idea how much to extract from an ATM, and I’d forgotten to bring my watch, headscarf and handwash – so how well was my internal SatNav likely to be geared up? Carefully I talked myself back the way I had come: take the big road to the right of that ghastly pink hotel-like

the beating heart of the city

Green Bazaar, Dushanbe

thing, go past one set of traffic lights (something else that’s in short supply here), past the block where the road’s been entirely dug up (to the delight of the local kids, who seem to regard it, and its mountain ridges of dug-out soil, as an extended playground), past two particularly whiffy dumpsters (no missing them, however little light might be around), take the right past the nice house just beyond an official-looking building (owned by Gazprom, so I belatedly realised), down past a little collection of now-closed shops, and left at what, fortunately, was still visibly a very pink building and into my own side street. I heaved a big sigh of relief as I pushed open the anonymous door.

Complementing this air of secrecy is the challenge of describing the city: Dushanbe is not a place to lend itself to simple generalisations. It’s certainly very different from anywhere I’ve ever been. But then this is only my first foray into Central Asia: maybe I’d expected to find more than an echo or two of generic Third World- or Asian-ness. Yet this in itself is not too surprising. This part of the world has been subjected to a

the Ismoil Somoni statue from the Parchan

myriad of influences, a fact soon illustrated by my visit to the National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan: Greek, Arab, Zoroastrian, Hindu, Muslim, Chinese… and that was only the pre-eleventh century ones that I’d heard of (Sasanid, Sogd and Bactrian all being new-to-me), never mind the likes of Chingghis Khan and his Mongolian hordes and the multiple European would-be colonisers who came later. Even I could identify very European features in the BC display cases, and very Chinese ones in the fifth-to-sixth century AD ones.

The people are ethnically interesting. I’m not yet au fait with the nuances of the various peoples between the Middle East and China, so can’t distinguish a Tajik from an Uzbek, an Afghan from a Kyrgyz, but, when my immigration “queue” was invaded in a manner that would be quite the envy of Indian and Chinese crowds, I was conscious of a different physiognomy. It’s a handsome look, chiselled faces and slight builds for both young men and women, though older women tend more to the Russian “babushka” build, and men become more walnut-like in their weathered-ness as the years progress. Women tend to wear a salwaar kameez, or long dress, or some combination

bread on wheels

Green Bazaar, Dushanbe

of clothes that give a similar impression; I’ve only seen a couple of women in “Western” clothes and only one in shorts. Headscarves don’t predominate, being worn by maybe only a fifth of the women here in town, but I still wear mine, an infinitesimal degree of fitting-in, disguise, that makes me feel slightly less obvious.

The vast majority of the population is Sunni Muslim, although the country is officially secular and the constitution provides for freedom of religion. Minarets are noticeable by their absence, and Ramadan does not seem to be widely observed in terms of the fasting requirements – at least, I’ve seen no end-of-day feasting and festivity, though the month, which has another week to go, would otherwise account for the paucity of people around.

While I’ve come across only a few other Westerners – and none of them evidently tourists – there seems to be no real curiosity in outsiders, which is refreshing. Kids sometimes stare, but usually only when I’ve stopped to greet them, at which point my “Salom” greeting is often met with “Hello! Goodbye! Hello!” – even once, in the evening, an extended “Good morning, lady” – and gusts of giggles,

the fountains have it

but this game and the stranger soon lose their appeal. It’s not that people are unfriendly – in fact my feeble attempts at Tajik (usually preceded by a hang-on-a-minute gesture while I consult my notes) tend to result in big smiles and attempted conversation – but they seem to be waiting for me to make the first move, rather than soliciting an interaction with me. As this goes hand-in-hand with my being left alone, I’m not complaining. There’s a welcome dignity in their approach which I am happy to respect.

Architecture tends to the dramatic in the centre of town, with neoclassical being the prevailing trend. This is no indication of age, rather the reverse. After all, Dushanbe was little more than a village until the 1920s (its name, “Monday”, reflected when the weekly market was held). While some of this colonnaded splendour dates back to the Soviet era, some is an awful lot more recent, notably the European-esque Palace of Nations, for which the country’s last synagogue and remaining Jewish community compound was flattened in 2008. And there’s an air of whatever-you-can-do-we-can-do-better in the city’s contribution to the world’s flagpole competition. I thought I’d seen and heard it

Dushanbe wins!

the Palace of Nations and Bayrak, the world's tallest flagpole

all in the Korean peninsula’s DMZ, when I saw the distant eyesore that was North Korea’s 160m reaction to its neighbour’s humble 98m number, but I hadn’t realised that that was only the beginning. I now read that North Korea’s wasn’t even the tallest in the world when it was built, being just outpaced by the one in Baku, Azerbaijan (162m), but now Dushanbe has beaten them all with Bayrak, the flagpole dominating the new central park, Bagh-i-Rudaki. (I’m also impressed to see that the Tajik flag – weighing in at 700kg if Wikipedia is to be believed – manages to flap rather majestically. It was always said that the DMZ’s North Korean flag, a humble 270kg, was just too heavy to flap and, when I was there, it certainly appeared to droop rather disconsolately.)

Frivolity to one side, the costs involved in this city centre rejuvenation – of which the Palace of Nations, Bagh-i-Rudaki and Bayrak are only a few components – are staggering, particularly in the context of a country still regarded as the poorest in Central Asia and where it’s estimated that maybe as much as half the national GDP comes from money sent home by

has a Roman centurion misplaced his standard?

the Parchan, Dushanbe

the diaspora, mainly men who have gone to work in Russia.

Surprisingly in this context, beggars seem to be relatively few in number. I was accosted a couple of times in the Green Bazaar by women with babies in their arms, and I was concerned to see an old man lying slumped across the steps of an underpass in the full force of the sun pushing away money being given to him, but these have been very much the exception. Whether this is the result of a national edict against begging, or Islamic disapproval of the practice, I have yet to discover.

In short – which this isn’t – Dushanbe is an intriguing city offering tantalising prospects of the rest of this part of the world. For a long time, I’d pigeonholed Central Asia as “difficult”, particularly on my own, but now I’m beginning to think I might investigate it further, and not necessarily under the umbrella of an overland trip…

But, for now, I must turn my attention to my packing, or rather my re-packing, sorting out what doesn’t need to come trekking with me in the coming weeks, and what needs to be closer at