زمین سبز و کاسه های سبز

So this was supposed to be about my day-long excursion to Kulob, the capital of Tajikistan’s southern Khatlon province, a historically significant city, and the place of origin for my host family.

I’m going to be talking about grass and cow stomachs. I swear, the two are related, just bear with me.

Kulob is roughly a three-and-a-half hour drive from the capital, and given that Khatlon is Tajikistan’s agricultural heart and it’s springtime for the country, the road south is absolutely beautiful. Literally, everything is a bright and verdant green, the sun is shining, and it’s amazing. And one of the stops on the way to Kulob is Nurak (or Nurek), home to a massive hydroelectric complex that was so beautiful, apparently Soviet-era Tajikistan felt like writing poems about it (I’m seriously not making that up, go find them, they exist). And, at Nurak at around 8:00 AM yesterday morning, I came face-to-face with what will be the subject of most of this update.

As I’d had to get up and be ready by 6:30 this morning, I’d only managed to scarf down some Russian hot dogs (of worthy mention, dear Russians, if you’re going to use artificial skins for your sausage, please do what we do in the West and make the damn thing edible, because “peeling” my morning breakfast is both horrifying and time-consuming) and chai before having to be on my way. So when our guide/administrator suggested stopping for food, I eagerly agreed. After all, given that the typical “Tajik breakfast” seemed to be either fried eggs, or some variant of milk and rice, what was the worst that could happen?

Let’s meet shurbo-e alafi and shurbo-e shekam.

The former is a soup (shurbo=soup) that is made of…you guessed it, alafi. But what is alafi? You may notice it looks similar to a word in English, alfalfa. Because that’s what it is. It’s grass. Shurbo-e alafi is “grass soup”. And for the latter, what is shekam? Stomach, in this case, cow stomach; being the base of a soup with little more than some lentils to absorb the taste of…well, more alafi, as well as some other tastes…and now I should fess up. Both of these soups were actually delicious. Hell, I ordered the shurbo-e shekam when I realized that adding meat would be the only way to make the shurbo-e alafi any better. The soups came with a salad (called shakarob in Tajiki) of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, hot peppers, and greens that you could compare to salsa, the ever present and always delicious naan, and a sauce I’m told is called satsavi. For any Iranians reading, it’s like a notably sour fesenjoon sauce; for any Georgians/fans of Georgian food, you know what I’m talking about; for everyone else, get on one of the two aforementioned boats. But seriously, aside from the cow stomach making the soup taste very…gastric (?), I loved every minute of my breakfast.

But now here was the weirder part. We get to this museum-castle reconstruction thing at a place called Hulbuk, and, after seeing the ruins of an old fort in the shadow of a mountain of salt, we were called over to a shack by an old bearded gentleman. Since this is hardly a random occurrence in Tajikistan, our group followed him down to a prepared pot of…shurbo-e alafi, accompanied in this case by powdered red pepper. And again, it was good, although by this point I was getting a tad full…

And this brings me to my point with these stories. Tajikistan breaks down into three basic regions: Khujand, Khatlon, and Badakhshan. These regions have their traditional stereotypes, the academic and "know-it-all" Khujandis, the agricultural and “backwards” Khatlonis, and the “what the hell are you doing here” Badakhshanis. As I've said multiple times, Tajikistan claims two national dishes, osh and qurutob. But here’s the thing, you can find osh from Bulgaria to China. So that’s not really “Tajiki”. You know what is? Shurbo-e alafi. No one (according to my professor and the people I talked to at the way station in Nurak) else in the region thought that making the grass they've been feeding their livestock into soup was a good idea. But it totally was, this shit’s delicious. And here’s my point (I think?), I jerk around with Tajikistan and Tajiks, going from admiring them to thinly-veiled insults. But stuff like shurbo-e alafi and qurutob, which are genuinely unique, and pretty damn good to boot, show that if you have to put money on someone doing the best with what they've got, I’d say the Tajiks are a pretty safe bet.

As for the rest of Kulob…I don’t know, I think the problem is that I’m comparing it to Khujand, the other large city in Tajikistan. And that’s not fair, I was in Khujand for three days, and in Kulob for only three hours. So I’ll just leave it at “I’ll go back and give it another shot.” Look forward to that one.

As always: Ташаккуру Худо ҳафез

در راه دوباره ام

Travel. Certainly that was the name of the game when I decided to spend a year halfway around the world in Tajikistan, and now, with my 8-month language program rapidly coming to an end, “travel” will again, for two brief weeks, be important again. The only question, it seems, will be where to go.

Tajikistan unfortunately finds itself in a tough neighborhood. To the south, the on-again-off-again nightmare that is Afghanistan is a…less than desirable travel locale. To the west, Uzbekistan, our less-than-friendly former Soviet counterpart, is to put it lightly, a bureaucratic nightmare to try to enter, and even worse to stay in. And while the east offers the great expanses of western China, I can’t take the land border. So that leaves (and say this as dramatically as possible, out loud if you can)…

THE PAMIR HIGHWAY!

What is the Pamir Highway? Well, supposing you aren’t terribly lazy and bothered to click the hotlink I provided (and if you are, shame on you), it should be self-explanatory. It’s a road that stretches from Khorugh in Tajikistan up north to Osh, the second city of Kyrgyzstan. In doing so, it cuts through the Pamir Mountains, also known as the “Roof of the World”. Needless to say, I do expect this to be, if nothing else, absolutely stunning.

Do I have a plan? Shockingly, yes!

Starting from Dushanbe, the plan will be to find a jeep/mashrutka heading east to Khorugh. This is anywhere from 13 hours to two days. In a car. With God knows how many people. In May. After reaching Khorugh, a day to recuperate will pretty much be in order. Luckily, the city itself isn't particularly big, and the fact I know several Pamiris has gotten me a few offers of where to stay, so I’m looking forward to that.

Following Khorugh, things get fun. The Pamir Highway is, luckily, just one road going east than north, so I know I need to find a car/truck/something going to the town of Murghab. Since Murghab (which translates to “Chicken/bird water”, a reference to the fact it’s on a river in the mountains) has a population of about 4,000, the real reason I need this place is to get a ride north to Kyrgyzstan, and into the only country in Central Asia I don’t need a visa to go to.

In Kyrgyzstan, the hope will be to visit the two largest cities, Osh and Bishkek. Osh, which you may recognize as the name for one of the national dishes of Tajikistan, is the site of Central Asia’s largest bazaar, as well as the site of some major riots back in 2010. And Bishkek is the capital, with all that entails, including a university (AUCA) where I've considered doing at least part of a Masters.

I've got two weeks between the end of my program here and the (planned) start of work. Seems doable right? And if not, there are always…options.

As always: Ташаккуру Худо ҳафез

آلومینیوم و پشیمانی آینده در آسیا مرکزی

Had quite a bit of time to think lately, and since that never goes well, I figure I’d write it out and see what happens.

As far as Tajikistan is going, this weekend we went on one of our last excursions to the near-border city of Tursunzoda. This city has two things going for it: it’s named for one of the most famous Soviet era Tajik poets, and it has the largest aluminum processing facility in Central Asia (and the second largest in the former Soviet Union). While this might not seem as “exciting” as watching hundreds of Central Asians beating one another on horseback for a goat carcass (Hint: It wasn't , it was still interesting to see what makes up a massive part of Tajikistan’s economy, as well as to learn that chemistry is confusing in Tajik or English, and that during the civil war, the factory kept working and even managed to win international awards.

Think whatever you want about Tajikistan, but that’s intense, regardless of location.

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Now about the thinking. I imagine that, for some of the readers, it’s clear that, while not everything in this country thrills me, I love being in Tajikistan. And to those of you who personally know, I've relished in the idea of just being outside of the US. But that time is, slowly but surely, coming to an end. At the most, I’ll be home in August, in time to finish my final year of university. This reality, of course, leads me to one very obvious conclusion.

I hate it.

I've gotten two years of an education in politics and security, so that’s something. And here I've been learning a language that, while incredibly beautiful and rich, is spoken by three countries, one of which has been a warzone for three decades, and the other which will let me in over my cold, dead body (or warm, tortured body, if I decide to take up hiking…).

But I refuse to accept that this has been an exercise in futility. Rather, I'm embracing the complete insanity of what I wanted and what I want now. Would I have been "happy" before? Maybe. But now I know more, know "better". Soon enough I’ll be back in America, my international adventures curbed for the foreseeable future. But enough of the sadness, I have good friends and my loving family at home, which are certainly more than I should really need. And it’s only April. There are still at least two months, and one massive adventure, coming up. Besides, things are so much sweeter when you've got a finite amount of time to do them all.

As always: Ташаккуру Худо ҳафез

تحقیق در گوشه جهان فراموش: او آغاز میشود

I hate research. This needs to be stated, because it’s starting to consume my once bountiful free time, and if I’m going to be pulling all-nighters in Tajikistan, I think I need to address why I’m doing this.

If you've been reading this for a while, you know that it’s been a goal of mine to do some sort of research during my time in Tajikistan. And, following the fallout of what I am lovingly calling “The Armenian Fiasco”, Tajikistan will be the only country under study. But what to do? This question has puzzled me for quite some time. On one hand, Tajikistan is, as far as the Central Asian countries go, among the most interesting, pinned between the perpetual quagmire of Afghanistan, the political powderkeg of Kyrgyzstan, and having a hate-more hate relationship with neighboring Uzbekistan (also known as the country that the US has trained and armed to have the largest army in Central Asia).

On the other hand, Tajikistan is not a free country by any stretch of the imagination, and too much snooping in the wrong direction could cause problems. And let’s be fair, I would totally go snooping in the wrong direction, because I’m that guy.

So, what causes problems for Tajikistan, and would be something on which “original” research could be done? My answer ended up being: migration, Diasporas, and the relationship there. While I’m not going into too much detail here (there’s Wikipedia for a reason folks), any country that has almost 1 million people working abroad is bound to have a complex relationship with communities abroad. Add in that Tajikistan has been on the “critically unstable/crises to look out for” lists for the last several years, without any major existential crises, and you've got an interesting topic.

On that note, I've got a research “class” going on here, which will, before the end of the program in May, see me speaking with the Ministries of Labor and Migration, the opposition Hizb-i Nazahat-i Islami (or, slightly more frighteningly in English, “Islamic Renaissance Party”) and Social Democratic Party, various media and civil organizations around the capital, and Tajik Diaspora groups abroad in Russia and (hopefully) the US.

So yeah…good stuff.

Finally, I said there’d be a farewell this week, but if I say anymore, I’m pretty sure I’ll cause more problems than I have before, so you know who you are, it was a damn shame to see you leave, and I’ve said everything else.

As always: Ташаккуру Худо ҳафез