Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
remains hard, and reports of massive cor-
ruption are apparently corroborated by doc-
uments disseminated via Wikileaks, people
see steady improvements in infrastructure
(re-surfaced roads, mobile telephones, shiny
new monuments) and savour the relative
stability.
Maintenance of this stability has included
heavy-handed military incursions against
Islamist insurgents in Garm (2010) and a
major battle in Khorog (2012) ostensibly in
retribution for the murder of an intelligence
officer. The latter saw the whole Gorno-
Badakhshan province closed to foreign visi-
tors, completely choking off the latter part
of the 2012 tourist season. But tourism is
growing. And the national economy has
rebounded impressively, at least on paper.
Much, however, remains dependant on in-
ternational aid (over US$60 million a year
arrives from the EU alone) and, especially,
on remittances from Tajiks working abroad.
An estimated million or so Tajiks (mostly
men) work abroad, notably in the Russian
construction industry, sending back around
US$800 million a year. That's around half
of Tajikistan's official GDP. While alumini-
um and cotton together constitute around
80% of Tajikistan's official exports, unoffi-
cially, it is estimated that as much as 50%
of Tajikistan's economic activity in the last
decade was linked to Afghanistan's narcot-
ics trade.
Tajikistan's great natural resource is wa-
ter, its glacial reserves amounting to 40% of
Central Asia's total. Yet despite the huge po-
tential for hydropower, in winter Dushanbe
is sometimes without electricity and heating
for days. If it's ever finished, the giant Rogun
dam, under construction on the Vakhsh
River, could change all that. At full power it
would supply 80% of Tajikistan's electricity
requirements and provide export revenues.
But the downstream countries (Uzbekistan
and Turkmenistan) remain deeply opposed
to the project and engineers have expressed
serious doubts about the stability of the
dam's design.
Tajikistan is still in the process of formal-
ising the exact delimitation of its borders
with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, while the
Chinese border was only settled in 2011
DIGGING¨UP¨THE¨PAST
Visiting Tajikitan's bet museums you'll often see inds from and references to a whole
series of ancient temple and city sites. Although today mot are little more than undula-
tions in the earth, each has a glorious hitory. Discoveries from these sites are show-
cased at Dushanbe's National Museum (p316). The website www.afc.ryukoku.ac.jp/tj
has more.
Bunjikath The Sogdian site of Bunjikath near Shakhritan was the 8th-century capital
of the kingdom of Ushrushana. It is noteworthy for a famous Sogdian mural depicting
a wolf suckling twins, a clear echo of the Roman legend of Romulus and Remus that is
repeated in tatues across the country.
Sarazm Unesco-lited Sarazm is a 5500-year-old site 15km wet of Penjikent. One of
the oldet city sites in Central Asia, inds here include a ire temple and the grave of a
wealthy woman whose lapis beads and seashell bracelets from around the 4th century
BC are now at Dushanbe's National Muesum.
Kobadiyan The ancient site of Kobadiyan (7th to 2nd centuries BC) in southern
Tajikitan is famed for the nearby discovery in 1877 of the Oxus Treasure, a tunning
2500-year-old Achaemenid treasure-trove unearthed at Takht-i Kobad, which now re-
sides in the British Museum (www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass, search for 'Oxus
Treasure').
Takht-i¨Sangin A ruined 2300-year-old Graeco-Bactrian temple close to the point
where Alexander crossed the Oxus in 329 BC.
Ajina¨Teppe Southeat of Kurgonteppa is 7th- to 8th-century Ajina Teppe (Witches
Hill), where in 1966 archaeologits unearthed a tupa, monatery and Central Asia's
larget surviving Buddha tatue.
Hulbuk Hulbuk was once the fourth-larget city in Central Asia. Its 9th- to 11th-century
citadel and palace have been excavated, and the palace walls are now being dramati-
cally rebuilt. It is at Kurbon Shaid.
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