Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
after the Tajik government agreed to give
Beijing 1142 sq km of territory (around
Rang-Kul), much to the dismay of people in
Badakhshan who felt that Tajiks had given
away their land. But the most sensitive bor-
der is with Afghanistan. This has had great
geopolitical importance as a logistical sup-
ply route during the succession of wars in
that country. The withdrawal of US troops
by 2014 means a period of uncertainty over
the security situation, but Afghanistan is
also seen as a potential economic benefit
with new road, rail and energy-export links
planned, assuming Afghanistan stabilises. If
it doesn't, Tajikistan risks being in the firing
line of any Taliban spill-over.
astich made a last stand against the Arabs at
Mt Mug in the Zerafshan Mountains, before
he was finally beheaded by the Muslim van-
quishers.
Modern Tajikistan traces itself back to the
glory days of the Persian Samanid dynasty
(819-992 AD), a period of frenzied creative
activity that hit its peak during the rule of
Ismail Samani (849-907 AD), transliterated
in modern Tajik as Ismoil Somoni. Bukhara,
the dynastic capital, became the Islamic
world's centre of learning, nurturing great
talents such as the philosopher-scientist
Abu Ali ibn-Sina (known in the West as Avi-
cenna) and the poet Rudaki. Both are now
competitively claimed as native sons by Iran,
Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
History
A Blurring of Identity
Under the Samanids, the great towns of
Central Asia were Persian, which is one rea-
son Tajikistan still claims Samarkand and
Bukhara as its own. However, at the end
of the 10th century a succession of Turkic
invaders followed up their battlefield suc-
cesses with cultural conquest. Despite con-
trasting cultures, the two peoples cohabited
peacefully, unified by religion. The Persian-
speaking Tajiks adopted Turkic culture and
the numerically superior Turks absorbed the
Tajik people. Both weathered conquests by
the Mongols and, later, Timur (Tamerlane),
though most of the territory of modern
Tajikistan remained on the fringes of the
Timurid empire.
From the 15th century onwards, the Tajiks
were subjects of the emirate of Bukhara,
who received 50% of Badakhshan's ruby pro-
duction as a tax. In the mid-18th century the
Afghans moved up to engulf all lands south
Tajik Ancestry
Tajik ancestry is a murky area, with roots
reaching back to the Bactrians and Sogdi-
ans. Tombs from the eastern Pamir show
that Saka-Usun tribes were grazing their
flocks here from the 5th century BC, when
the climate was considerably more lush than
today.
In the 1st century BC the Bactrian empire
covered most of what is now northern Af-
ghanistan. Their contemporaries, the Sog-
dians, inhabited the Zerafshan (Zeravshan)
Valley in present-day western Tajikistan,
where a few traces of this civilisation re-
main near Penjikent. Alexander the Great
battled the Sogdians and besieged Cyropol
(Istaravshan), before founding modern-day
Khojand. The Sogdians were displaced in
the Arab conquest of Central Asia during
the 7th century AD. The Sogdian hero Dev-
THE¨OPIUM¨HIGHWAY
In modern Central Asia, the Silk Road has become a heroin highway. Worldwide
Tajikitan ranks third in seizures of opiates after Iran and Pakitan. But sharing well over
1000km of porous border with the world's larget opium producer (Afghanitan), it's
hardly surprising that much more gets through: possibly 200 tonnes of heroin a year.
Warlords and criminal gangs control mot of the business, although the army, police,
Afghan Taliban and border guards are alleged to have ingers in the opium bowl. Drugs
have even turned up in Kazakh diplomatic bags and on Russian military lights. In 2005
a homemade aircraft (a parachute with a motor attached) was shot down lying above
the border with Tajikitan with 18kg of heroin. In 2009 Russian police seized 80kg of
heroin from smugglers on the Dushanbe-Moscow train, a line well known to anti-
narcotic police as the 'Heroin Express'. Over the years drug money has inanced
everything in Tajikitan from weapons for the civil war to the poppy palaces that line
the Varzob Valley north of Dushanbe.
