ماجرای تابستانم، بخش دوم: در میان مرز

There are a number of places where I think it’s completely ok to have no idea what’s going to happen, and something as simple as going forward can be an exciting challenge.

Kyzyl-Art is not one of those places.

Let’s start from the beginning. After driving for several hours (and our pit stop in Karakol), we finally arrived at the Kyzyl-Art/Bor Dobo Pass.  This place has a long name, but it’s pretty underwhelming. Some 4000 meters (give or take) up, when we pulled up in our jeep, there was literally nothing. An old Russian sign welcoming travelers into Gorno-Badakhshan. A burnt-out yurt and vehicle garage. Some storage containers converted into offices and a barracks. And absolutely nothing else for miles around.

Now, as we were handing in our passports and identification to the guards, my new travel companion Shorat promptly got up, grabbed his rather large bag, and exited the jeep. This seems like an appropriate point to mention that I’m 99% certain that Shorat (obviously not his real name) was trafficking heroin. Before the border, there were a few hints that this might be the case. When asked what he did for a living, the most detailed answer I eventually got was “exports from Afghanistan”. Alright, yes, Afghanistan does export things, but what exports does it have that “don’t get checked at the border”, to paraphrase my friend. But still, this guy might have a mystery Jeep that was somehow smaller on the inside than it should’ve been, and he might be incredibly protective of the “mystery shed” at his place in Murghab, but that doesn't mean anything…right?

Well, then we got to the Narcotics office on the border. And the officer on duty asks to see our bags. While I’m arguing in my head if Tajikistan is nationalist enough that me selling out the “dirty, drug-dealing Kyrgyz” might keep me from getting detained/shot, Shorat calmly reaches into his bag and pulls out…more US cash than I've seen in months. He proceeds to give sizable wads of dollar bills to every single person running security there. And everyone seemed to know this was coming, and was chatting with Shorat like they were old buddies.

So yeah…that happened. Thinking there was no way we could have any problems after that, we moved onto passport control. For Shorat, the driver, and the Kyrgyz woman we’d picked up in Karakol, no problems.

For me…alright, here we go, new story.

I get called into the barracks/passport area by one of the guards, who asks me to explain what exactly I’m doing at Kyzyl-Art. So I start saying, in Tajiki/Farsi, my plan to travel the Pamir Highway from Dushanbe to Osh, and then continue up to Bishkek, before flying back to Dushanbe. When asked about how my visa was going to expire on the 28^th, I explained that I’d talked to the visa office, and they’d said everything was fine, and I could leave and re-enter with the same visa. So the guard stamped my passport, and said quite calmly I now needed a new visa to re-enter Tajikistan…

You may be wondering what the hell just happened.

So this is almost entirely the fault of an unfortunate coincidence in the Persian language, and Tajikistan in general. To understand this, you need to know the clause “dar Dushanbe”. This consists of the preposition “dar”, which means “in” or “on”, and Dushanbe, which can be the name of the capital of Tajikistan…or the word for Monday (hence, punny blog title). So when I told the passport guy that I’d talked to the visa office last week ‘dar Dushanbe’, I meant that I’d talked to the office in Dushanbe. The officer thought I’d meant I’d talked to the visa office on Monday, and the office in Bishkek at any rate. So naturally, why would I need my same visa?

As you might imagine, I was starting to shit bricks, when the situation decided to get a tad bit worse. The driver from the jeep comes to me and says they have a schedule they need to keep, so they’re leaving. You know, without me. So I find Shorat, somehow smoking at 4000 meters, and ask what exactly is going on.  He confirms that, yes, they are on a schedule and need to leave. However, I’m “not supposed to worry”, because they’ll wait in a town in southern Kyrgyzstan for me, and I just have to tell whoever picks me up to take me there. No big deal, right, let’s just start hitchhiking in Central Asia? What could go wrong?

In retrospect, I probably could’ve just applied for the visa in Bishkek. But at the moment, I figured the most logical course of action was to ask for whoever was in charge at Kyzyl-Art, and see if we could figure this out. I find this guy sitting at his “office” in the burnt-out garage, drinking something (as we’ll find out, no one’s quite sure what it is), and try explaining what happened. I feel like giving myself some credit here, maybe it was the thin air, or the travel exhaustion, or the fact I was operating in my third language, but I was reasonably calm and collected as the commander told me to come back with him to the barracks. He then proceeds to genuinely beat the shit out of the recruit in charge of stamping passports, yelling about someone could be so stupid as to not realize that ‘Dushanbe’ could mean two things in a country which has a capital named, well, that.

So frightening abuse of military personnel aside, we all sit down around the table with my passport, and try to figure out what to do. An eraser can’t get rid of the stamp. Spit can’t rid of the stamp. I won’t let them use a knife to “scrape the ink off.” Finally, the recently-beaten recruit says he has an idea. He disappears for a bit, before coming back with a jug of some clear liquid. After a few minutes of literally scrubbing my passport, the stamp is blurred enough that they’re able to write something hastily over it. The commander then says that, if I have problems re-entering Tajikistan (SPOILERS: I do), I can tell them to call the Kyzyl-Art post, and they’ll explain everything.

One problem down, one to go.

Waiting for a truck or jeep or something to be heading north, the guards start asking me questions, where are you from, how old are you, stuff like that. However, upon learning that my birthday was yesterday, the commander jumps up, salutes, screams “ZODRUZ MOBARAK!” (Happy birthday), and hands me the jug of clear liquid. Now at this point, there’s a bit of confusion. The commander calls the liquid “vodka”, the recruits ask why he’s making me drink “benzin”. And after a few sips, and a massive urge to vomit that morning’s yogurt and shir-chai, I’m inclined to agree with the recruits, that shit was not made for consumption.

While I hate doing these, it’s time for a retrospective. I must’ve waited for about an hour or two at Kyzyl-Art for someone going north to show up. And, between chatting with the grunts on/off duty, playing Russian card games, and drinking utterly gut-wrenching mixtures of chai and “vodka”, I was genuinely enjoying myself. Yeah, I was worried as hell about how exactly I was getting into Kyrgyzstan, but that would be then, and this would be now.

Eventually, a fuel truck headed north did show up, and with the commander as an intermediary, I was able to negotiate my passage into Kyrgyzstan. Crossing into Kyrgyzstan itself would prove majorly uneventful, aside from some jokes about my last name, and references to me being a doppelganger of Peter Parker (while a common occurrence in Kyrgyzstan, a first for me overall), I was in a new country without too much hassle.

Time for the fun to start…

ماجرای تابستانم، بخش اول: بدخشان

Eight days. Two countries. Five cities.

Last week, I departed on my long-awaited trip along the Pamir Highway, travelling via various means from my home for the last eight months, through the mountains in the Pamirs, passing over the “roof of the world”, before entering our northern neighbor Kyrgyzstan and crossing through that own country’s Tian Shan mountains, through the city of Osh, before taking the final stretch of road to the capital of Bishkek. I expected it to be a week I’d never forget.

I don’t think I realized quite how crazy it’d be…

Due to the sheer extensiveness of this story (and…other factors), I’ll be breaking this into three posts, each detailing a different place: Tajikistan/Badakhshan, the border, and Kyrgyzstan. Given I’m a sucker for chronological order, we’ll be starting at the beginning…

---

On the morning of the 13^th, I went to a hidden away parking lot near the airport, and sought out a mashrutka. My destination: Khorugh, the capital of the autonomous Gorno-Badakhshan province, the first stop on my route to Bishkek. After a few minutes of negotiation, I found a van headed east, and was all ready…to sit and wait. For four hours. You see, one of the gents who was going to Khorugh had lost his personal ID, and since entry into Badakhshan is heavily regulated, we couldn’t go until he found it. So we sat, and we sat, and we sat, but eventually everything sorted itself out and we were off!

After an hour or two of driving, I’d become fairly well acquainted with the guy sharing the backseat with me, Edik, and his wife; but I’d realized one tiny, and slightly disturbing fact…we were going the wrong way. Badakhshan, and by extension Khorugh, are located in the east of the country. As we passed Nurak, Kulob, and Muminobod, it became clear we were driving south, and thus taking an incredibly roundabout way into Khorugh. And for a journey that can take up to two days, “roundabout” isn’t necessarily a good thing.

By the time we finally entered Badakhshan proper, I was already planning on how exactly I was going to take the mashrutka and everyone in it down with me as we plunged into the raging river separating Tajikistan from its equally lovely neighbor, Afghanistan. But there were some positives. The mountains that the route weaved through were absolutely stunning, and verdant hills were made even lovelier by a paved road. And at night…by the time the sun was finally down, the number of stars in the sky were beyond counting. It was simply amazing.

Rolling in at about 2 AM, after nearly 16 hours on the road, I rapidly realized there was a problem. My plan had been to stay with the family of a friend for the 2-3 days I was expecting to stay in Khourgh. Only problem was that, several hours prior, the contact number I’d been given had “stopped being in service”, meaning I was, effectively, without a place to stay. Shit was probably one of the nicer things I was having going through my head. But remember how I said I was getting chummy with that guy Edik? Well, as he and his wife made quite clear, there was no way they were going to let their new friend sleep on the street his first night in Khorugh. So yeah, felt like a bit of a dick for wanting to drive them into the river a few hours before…

When the morning came, I was off. How to describe Khorugh…now this part is tough. On one hand, the people of Khorugh proved to be a marvelous bunch. As opposed to the titular Tajik nationality, Khorugh is primarily populated with ethnic Pamiris, a group of closely related Eastern Iranian peoples who, among other things, have their own (radically different) language(s) and their own sect of Islam. Oh, and they really don’t like being talked to in Tajiki, that was a lesson I learned a little late. Now, contrasting this, the “city” of Khorugh is nothing but a glorified village. After walking through the entire town within the course of 90 minutes, and realizing to my horror it was just as expensive as Dushanbe, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of: I walked through the garbage dump at the edge of town and into the surrounding hills, armed with only a bottle of water and my Farsi translation of Romulus der Grosse.  Those several hours I spent alone with my thoughts, watching the town following the river below, were easily some of the nicest in my trip.

However, that night I returned to the “city” and, after resettling in the Pamir Lodge, which is actually awesome and worth checking out if you’re ever in the region, making friends with Steffan, the Dutchman who’d ridden a damn motorcycle from Amsterdam to Khorugh, and meeting the Josh Kucera (internationally renowned post-Soviet security policy scholar) in an Indian restaurant doing interviews for an upcoming article, it was time for a decision.

For you see, it was May 15. Meaning it was my birthday, and I had a choice to make. Did I want to find something to do in the nearby Wakhan Valley, or did I want to press onwards to my next destination, Murghab? After learning that a taxi to the Wakhan was about $100 (and proceeding to learn that Pamiris really don’t like it when you curse them out in Tajiki), Murghab it was!

My trip to Murghab was certainly different than my trip to Khorugh, mainly due to the fact that Murghab (and eastern Badakhshan as a whole) is radically different than the western half. For it’s in the eastern half of the province that the so-called “roof of the world” is located. And let me just say, the vast moonscape-like plains, snow capped mountains, and pristine alpine lakes we passed were…I guess awe-inspiring is a good word. The other major difference with this part of the country is the ethnic makeup. In the west, they’re Pamiri, which at least looks Tajik. In the east, they’re Kyrgyz, and if you’re unfamiliar with the difference, spend a few minutes on Google Images, you’ll be in for a treat.

Now I got to have three experiences with the Pamiri Kyrgyz, all of which are worth mentioning:

First was in the tiny (and I do mean tiny) village of Alichar. Located in quite literally the middle-of-freakin’-nowhere, when we pulled into the village, I had no idea what was going on. I was the only non-Kyrgyz in the van, and therefore the only one who, in the last six hours, had only been able to figure out that joq meant ‘no’. So I was confused, out-of-breath (more on that next), and was equally surprised when the older guy sitting next to me (honestly, I’m half tempted to call him ‘Kyrgyz Merlin’ based on how he looked, but what he did next would make feel like a complete shithead if I did that) gestures for me to go into one of the houses. Now, I won’t mince words, the Kyrgyz in the Pamirs have a tough life. There’s jackshit of practical use up there, if there’s a problem, it’s a several hour drive anywhere helpful, and it was below freezing in the middle of May. So what happened in this house? The family of the aforementioned older Kyrgyz guy had made us dinner. Not gonna lie, literally don’t have the words to express the gratitude I felt for so many things at that moment. Might not have been a birthday cake, but it was a damn fine meal regardless. Also, they offered to find me a “proper, Kyrgyz wife”.  So there’s that…

(Off topic, but really thinking I should start telling people I’m married.)

Anyways, second was that night. As we pulled into Murghab at about 10 PM, it was pitch black and below freezing. And, once again, I had nowhere to stay. Adding insult to injury, the fact I was now 3500 meters (~11,000 feet) above sea level meant that even a light stroll would leave me winded, and I was left with the conclusion that I was probably pretty screwed. Then, I met my salvation: Shorat. This guy, who knew Tajiki well enough that we’d been conversing much of the ride, said he would not only invite me into his home, but would arrange transportation for me to Osh the next day. Not bad, especially for guy who (as I’ll later describe) I’m pretty sure was a drug-trafficker.

The morning of the 16^th, after learning that Murghab, unlike the rest of Tajikistan, runs on Kyrgyz time (i.e. UTC +6, not +5), Shorat, the driver, and I set off for Osh. We continued on our way until we reached Karakol. Now Karakol is three things:

1.       A military checkpoint

2.       A village that serves as a way station for truckers and hitchhikers

3.       An alpine crater lake that was, like most of the year, frozen when we got to it

And it was here at Karakol, apparently picking up two people who I would learn were bound for Bishkek (including the “child from hell”…), an old woman came up to the jeep and started knocking on the window. After a short conversation in the melodious Kyrgyz language, Shorat told me the woman wanted me to come with her. Already weary about secret marriage proposals, I was hesitant, but I went. What I found was a small bowl of fresh-made yak yogurt and naan, and an old Kyrgyz babushka frantically encouraging me to eat. No idea what she was saying to me as I eating away, but it was a/another damn fine meal, and more hospitality than I’d been expecting.

Through the mountain passes we drove, 5000 meters above sea level, through wind-slept plateaus and snow-covered hills. As we approached the border though, I had no idea how “interesting” the guards at Kyzyl-Art were going to make my trip…

به زندگی سابقم، خداحافظ

Well, it’s come to this. Today’s my last day of classes in Tajikistan, followed by three days of exams (and one day of “We curbstomped the Nazis”), and then…I’m done.

It’s hard to believe that the focus of my life for the last 8 months is finally over. It literally seems like a few weeks ago that I couldn't understand anything anyone was saying, and I was struggling to order food at a restaurant.  Now I find myself teaching English classes in Farsi and arguing theology with a missionary from the Islamic Republic. I would never say I’m fluent in Farsi (as I become rapidly aware anytime I actually try talking to anyone about anything beyond politics, religion, food…you get the idea), I can survive here fairly well, which is nice.

Hell, this program has become like a family for me. Maybe it’s because there were, at maximum, three students at all times, but I see my professors here as almost family, and I’m probably living with one of them this summer. These are people who would, and I’m completely serious, would call me at random points on the weekend and see if I (or the other students) were doing anything.

This program has certainly had its ups and downs, but it’s been one hell of a ride, and easily one of the best things I've ever done with my life. And the best part?

I've still got three months left in Central Asia.

This will be my last update for a while. I've got exams to finish up, and then it’s a week-10 days in Badakhshan and Kyrgyzstan. Pending my return from that, I’ll be back, hopefully with plenty of stories for you good folks.

As always: Ташаккуру Худо ҳафез

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.

---

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