Tadjikistan: On The Edge of The Map

Part 2: toward the city

source: personal archives, tadjikistan 2023.

Descending from the Turkestan mountains, I stop in a small village clinging to the side of a valley, not far from the Vakhsh — a long, muddy river born in the heights of the Pamirs, stretching lazily toward the bridges of Dushanbe.

I wait at a crossroads, between two stalls of watermelon and a tiny shop where fluorescent cans crowd the shelves of an old fridge, hoping to find a ride to the capital. But today, no one seems willing to make the seven-hour journey — or at least, not for a price I can afford.

In the shade of the only tree by the roadside, I wait and sit beside an elderly man draped in an elegant black robe, sitting proudly, a dark wooden cane resting by his leg. A young man, likely his son, lingers a few steps away, engaged in noisy negotiations with a small group of men, looking to arrange his father’s transport. And here is my opportunity to join the ride. After a few vague exchanges, the deal is struck: a friend will drop the old man in a town lower down the valley, then continue on to Dushanbe.

Once his lunch finished and his cigarette stubbed out in the dust, our driver waves us over. Not a word is said. And so the three of us set off, jolting along in our improvised caravan. The car groans over crumbling asphalt, winding between sharp peaks and dusty red slopes, where a few shepherds' huts still cling to the mountainside. We pass through several tunnels, pitch black, creeping forward as the wheels sink again and again into vast hollows filled with water. They say deaths are common on this road. But these thoughts soon vanish as I let my mind drift elsewhere, far off into the dusty brown horizon. Nearing the capital, a bill has to be slipped into the pocket of a police officer who seems more interested in collecting souvenirs than enforcing traffic law. But at last, Dushanbe appears between two rows of plane trees. And there is still a bit of light.

A crushing heat hangs over Dushanbe in late June. The buildings, tall and pale, seem to hover above an ochre haze. They stand far apart, separated by vast, freshly watered avenues — a facade of greenery rarely offering the necessary shade. As in Almaty or Tashkent, these post-Soviet cities share a strangeness I haven’t quite gotten used to. Everything feels suddenly oversized. Just days earlier, the whole country seemed to fold into the creases of the mountains, narrow roads where two cars struggled to pass. Now we spill onto immense boulevards choked with endless flows of vehicles of all sorts. Not a walker’s paradise: long avenues under a pitiless sun, empty sidewalks, dust and clouds of exhaust. Here and there, imposing monuments and statues, their architecture hesitating between futuristic utopia and echoes of the past.

The city is clean, and feels unexpectedly opulent after the mountain villages of the past ten days. New apartment buildings with doormen, large black sedans stationed before brightly lit shops, and an astonishing number of hotels — for a place where few travelers seem to wander. I pass women in colorful hijabs and tunics, men in elegant dark suits, and near bus stops, groups of schoolchildren in uniforms watching me with amused curiosity.

I’m staying in one of those renovated concrete blocks that grid the city. Pushing the door open, I step into a heavily adorned interior, a style that seems favored around here: dark wood panels, golden rugs anchoring the living room, black tufted armchairs, and a large crystal chandelier hanging beneath a smoked-glass ceiling. From the entry to the bedrooms, walls lined with mirrors and a curious patchwork of colorful wallpapers. The place is far too spacious for a brief, solitary stay — but I welcome the return to comfort, and the first real shower since leaving the summits.

During this urban interlude, my days stretch out slowly. I wander aimlessly, stop in the shade of trees, and give in to a growing torpor. Whatever had carried me forward until now had drained away, like a tide gone out. I would have liked to rush through museums, linger in bazaars — but a month on the road has left me worn out, and the body no longer follows. Between naps, I read — stories, histories, fragments of the region.

Tajikistan, long part of the Emirate of Bukhara, was forcibly absorbed into the Soviet Union in the 1920s. After fierce resistance by the Basmachis, the Soviets imposed their rule: collectivization, religious persecution, the dismantling of traditional structures. Many Tajiks fled to neighboring Afghanistan, which would soon face its own share of tragedies. Much later, after the fall of the soviet union, the country would descend into a five years brutal civil war, pitting a post-communist government against a fragile coalition of moderate Islamists, liberals, and regional warlords. The conflict left the nation drained and broken. And since then, the same man has remained in power for thirty years, offering the illusion of stability under an increasingly tight grip.

There is so much to say about this region and its nuances. What little we see of it from afar rarely does justice to its complexity or depth. But such understanding can only grow with time, and repeated returns — in the hope that, someday, one might grasp something of its textures, its ways of being, its unique history. One must come back, then.

Dushanbe marks the end of a journey through Central Asia. Soon, a plane would carry me to Azerbaijan and Georgia, before the return to Europe. There, nothing would have really changed: the apartment with its woody scent, the city streets humming with summer, the familiar routines we slip back into almost without noticing.

But I, I will not come back quite the same. I don’t yet know what in me has shifted — only that I will look differently at the life I have left behind, just a couple months earlier.