Tajikistan Travel Guide

Tajikistan OVERVIEW

So here's another Asian

stan

, tossed from hands to hands from around the 4th millennium B.C. to be in turns a forfeit of Persians, Alexander the Great, Arabs, Uzbeks, and Afghans, until Russia announced that the Great Game be commenced, almost as if there hasn't been enough of playing with the people's identities, and Tajikistan landed a much hated consolation prize - the status of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Years went by and Tajiks grew strong to request a return match, ending up as a completely independent parliamentary state in 1992. But not for long could victory be celebrated as an insurgency by Islamic and democratic opposition forces led to a bloody civil war, claiming a toll of around 60,000 souls. Since the signing of peace accords in 1997, Tajiks have been dressing their wounds and learning to look on the bright side of their new, relatively stable lives. Luckily, their country's soothing beauty is of enormous help.

Tajikistan may be the smallest country in Central Asia but it rises high and proud with over 90% of its territory composed of mountains. Trekkers will be enamored with the Pamir range, its jagged scenery, piercing tranquility, breakfasts of yogurt and the excitement of a night spent in a yurt somewhere close to the roof of the world. Explorers will forever recall the feeling of sulphuric water smoothening their skin in Garam Chashma, of knocking on the back door of Afghanistan in Iskhashim, where peoples from both sides of the river come to hold a bustling Sunday market, all courtesy of the gorgeous Wakhan Valley.

But mind you, it's not all about nature. Life at the main crossroads of eastern civilizations has given Tajiks regular access to the accomplishments of other cultures, and thus makes up a patchwork of flamboyant influences. Just step in Penjikent and find out why it was called "Central Asia's Pompeii", stop off at Ura-Tube to be overwhelmed by a mosque that Alexander the Great himself found astounding, have the country's Silk Road past eloquently told in fabulous Khujand, and while in Dushanbe, make sure you don't miss any monument commemorating the capital's grand Persian and Iranian past. See you there. Khayr naboshad!