Postscript

Dressed to go to Waitrose in Morningside

I’m now back in Scotland and I have to pinch myself to believe I’ve been away.  It’s much easier than I imagined to slip back into “normal” life; although automatically saying assalamu alaikum to the check-out girl in Waitrose and touching my heart brings a blank stare and a reminder that south Edinburgh is not generally Islamic.

And the verdict? An incredible experience; life affirming to see people with so little being so generous; frustrating to think of all the things I could have done and didn’t do; satisfying to reflect on all the things we did achieve; daunting to think of all the things that still need to be done.

But the purpose is to help others; what did my hosts think? This is difficult to say, especially somewhere where people are so polite. The tourism reform programme has been approved by the President; that’s a start. I made lots of friends; that can only be good.  I introduced people to Scottish culture – well, they’ve got to learn to take the rough with the smooth…

What have I missed? My family, of course. Fish suppers. A pint in the pub. The idea that people and organisations can – usually and ultimately - be held accountable for their actions.

What have I missed that I’ve been glad to escape? The incessant media deluge I allow myself to be subjected to. The retail driven “greed-fest” that is the now the traditional lead-up to Christmas. The continuous loop of the Scottish independence argument. The cynicism and the way we take everything for granted. Escape to a simpler place and time has certainly had its benefits.

And Tajikistan? Well, it’s hardly a revelation to say I’ve never been anywhere like it. A wonderful country of tremendous contrasts. A hard drinking, Islamic, soviet socialist, free market, beautiful, intimidating, lethargic, stimulating, hospitable, crazy, mixed-up place. A police state of peaceful people who compete to look after strangers. A spectacular natural environment and complex social cocktail.

What would I wish for Tajikistan? Certainly not to be like us; I feel almost reluctant to be encouraging tourism. I have no doubts about the economic benefits and I know it’s disingenuous in the developed world to go on about authenticity and simplicity as we rush back to our increasingly artificial creature comforts. But I hope the Tajiks can keep their life built around people and not things. I hope they can retain their tolerance and charm. I hope they don’t get McDonalds and Starbucks and advertising plastered everywhere and 24 hour a day news channels.

I hope they get good government and the rule of law. I hope they don’t get swallowed up by the forces around them; Russia to the north, China to the East and Afghanistan and Iran to the south. I hope they get indoor plumbing.

Just before I left a couple of local colleagues took me to a small and rather run-down hall where a dance school was practicing. I was entranced. The best of Tajikistan; young, talented people caught up in the country’s great love – dancing. We made a short video, link here http://youtu.be/GXc9AyHRB5M. This encapsulates the best of my memories.

I could take to this, but would they lift me up again?

I am now hanging up the blogging pen until the next adventure. I wish everyone all the very best and hope particularly that my fellow VSO volunteers all have as rich an experience as I have had. Have a great Christmas and New Year. Assalamu alaikum.

Endings and Beginnings

I feel a bit like Mo Farah. The finishing line is in sight (for this particular race), success looks possible, but everything could go horribly wrong on the last straight and it needs a sprint at the end…

Actually, on reflection, I don’t feel a bit like Mo Farah. I don’t seem to have the keenly honed physique of a top athlete and I could only walk 10,000 metres if there were a couple of pub stops on the way, far less run it in under half an hour. Anyway I’m sure you get the point.

The Tajikistan Tourism Action Plan goes to the President next Friday. We’ve just had a small industry conference in Dushanbe to present the recommendations and now it’s just about keeping everyone upbeat until approval is confirmed. Then it’s just the simple matter of finding a few million dollars to implement and other minor details. I’ll be passing the hat around.

Perhaps it’s because this is a world without constantly streaming news and views but this must be one of the few places on the planet where the passing of Nelson Mandela seems to have gone relatively unnoticed.  And if anywhere could do with the moral compass that Mandela brought to government, it’s central Asia. Anyway, I’m glad to see pictures of singing and dancing in Africa. Nelson Mandela was the greatest statesman of at least the last 150 years and it’s right we should celebrate his life and the fact we were lucky enough to see his ultimate triumph.

By way of contrast, the big story here is that Tajikistan has joined the war on Santa Claus. For reasons that I’m sure do not escape you, Christmas is not a big deal here. New Year, Father Frost, the giving of presents and decorated fir trees are all popular relics of a Russian past however. In the struggle to establish a new national identity, though, these symbols and habits are not considered very Tajik. So, following a lead from Uzbekistan last year, such references are now banned from State television. Take that you western capitalist dogs!

Looking on the bright side, at least there won’t be another repeat of The Snowman here and we’re blessedly free of Slade and synthetic Christmas carols booming from the shops.

A couple of years ago someone dressed as Santa was murdered on the streets of Dushanbe. I think they tried to put Al Qaeda and Islamic extremists in the frame for the crime to get more money from the US for the “war on terror” but I think they should go back and question Mrs Claus. After all, she’s had a lot to put up with; him rolling home every Christmas morning, drunk from free sherry and exhausted, just when she needs help with the kids and the turkey…

Regardless of all the above, you get the weather and the scenery to put you in the mood for Christmas here; two pictures below looking down on Dushanbe from the hills to the south.

Tajik Charades

I must own up. My progress in learning Tajiki has been disappointing. I’ve been diligent with the homework, I bought the book – that’s going to be a bargain for someone at the next Dunfermline car boot sale - and I’ve struggled through the lessons in the face of incredible pain……etched on my teacher’s face. But it just hasn’t stuck.

There is the “old git with a failing memory” theory, which I don’t buy. Who else can remember when you could get a night out for 12½p in today’s money? Nothing wrong with my memory. I put it down to not being able to use the language on a day-to-day basis. People expect a Caucasian to speak Russian, logical I suppose, and turn off quickly as I struggle with what I believe is their language. My colleagues mostly speak good English.

Communication challenges are compounded by the fact that there are no Tajiki/English pocket dictionaries. Where are the tourists when you need them? There is a very useful free “app” developed for the US armed forces with lots of phrases and even audio of pronunciation. It tends to be most useful in situations where you want to say things like “We are Americans, we are here to help” and “put your hands on your head and stand against the wall”. It is of limited use in negotiating the purchase of carrots – unless things are getting really fraught.

So, of course, much communication is done by smiles and pointing and gestures. A few weeks ago I wanted coat hangers. Now you tell me; how do you imitate the purpose of a coat hanger standing in a crowded bazaar in front of a shopkeeper who is convinced a washing machine hose would solve your problems? Or shoe laces? That nearly did cause a punch-up when I picked up a shoe and started taking the lace out to illustrate what I wanted. This is apparently not a normal thing to do and I’m not completely sure of the offence – but it was serious. I did find out in the end that shoe shops do not sell laces; cobblers do. Remember them? Now try the actions for finding one. Price eventually 48p; cost in time at minimum wage rate, about £300.

Looking for coat hangers at my local hardware store

Today I went for a haircut. Now I‘m not too fussy about coiffure and there’s not a lot to be fussy about. So I wanted a light trim, with layering at the sides, no attempt at a comb over and, of course, a coffee and a biscuit. I made my requirements very clear and sat in the chair.

A few initial passes with the electric trimmer seemed to do the job and I thought I might forego the coffee and biscuit and settle with that. A firm hand on my shoulder kept me seated as one of the largest cut-throat razors I have ever seen appeared. I decided it was no time for charades, unless I was pretending to be Nelson’s statue atop his column (not a good comparison as I think about it, given the problems he had with missing body parts).

Anyway, my barber wiped the razor and then poured a clear liquid over it. I thought, oh – the after shave. He then set alight to it. He then wiped it again and heated it directly with a lighter. I presume this was all to clean the blade but, as I sat there, I began to ruminate on what he was going to do with a a large sharp edge that had been so elaborately sterilised? What did he think I meant with my “snip, snip – just a little bit” mime? What did Jamie Coomarasamay say about early morning circumcision parties? Are the “additional services” provided by barbers in Tajikistan different from those offered in the UK?.....

 (There are no pictures of me doing Tajik charades; and if there were, you’d be the last to find out. So instead here’s a picture of me before I had a haircut. Still something to smile about).

Kayaking with the Taliban

It was back up into the mountains last week for a tourism workshop in Khorog. Two of the main topics at the workshop were “cross border tourism” and “adventure tourism”. The Pamiris – as the locals prefer to be identified – have ideas to combine these. Cross border tourism here means crossing the Panj river to Afghanistan and following your donkey up into the hills. Adventure means getting back.

I felt I was spoiling the party a bit by explaining that, although adventure tourism was certainly popular with western tourists, playing hide and seek with the Taliban in the Wachan and, say, kayaking in the Trossachs, fall into two quite different categories of adventure.

The bridge over the Panj at Khorog

Anyway, it was a great couple of days and tremendous to see the interest and energy. As can be seen from the photo, though, I think my Afghan trekking disguise might need a bit more work. It may take more than a scarf and a hat to persuade anyone I’m a local.

Book now, at the Serena Inn, Khorog

Coming back to Dushanbe was interesting. Clouds and snow prevented flying so I was resigned to a twelve hour shared taxi ride. My host took me to the taxi park on the edge of town where I was told to hide behind a tree. He then went off to negotiate a place in a car and a price. I’m not sure whether I had to remain out of sight because, on seeing me, nobody would take the risk of my lasting the journey or whether there would be too much jostling to have the honour of my conveyance. I prefer to think the latter.

A vehicle was chosen – a good looking 4wd with all wheels and doors etc. in place - a deal done and I was whisked aboard. I don’t actually mind the road trip; the scenery is incredible the whole way and navigating the steep dirt roads in the face of Chinese trucks and flocks of sheep provides thrills enough. Finding  myself in the company of three non-English speakers was a bit disappointing initially though. I’m pretty good on nouns for different types of fruit in Tajiki and on phrases like “stop the taxi, I want to get out” and “take me to the opera” but this didn’t sustain conversation much beyond the end of the town. We relaxed into positive noises and I tried to avoid blowing my nose.

Winding through the Panj valley

The one thing I felt a bit daunted by, with no English speakers present, was how I’d get on at the inevitable police and army checkpoints en route. Travellers on all roads in the country are subject to checks but, as more than half the 600 kilometre route from Khorog to Dushanbe follows the Panj river valley – which is also the border with Afghanistan – then the checks are a bit more frequent and edgier.

Sure enough, as we pulled into Qalai Khum, a small town on a bend in the river, my heart sank. An army officer ushered our car off the main road into a dead end. We were then hustled from the vehicle down some metal stairs and on into a small, windowless room, where ………....... lunch was served.

Unbeknown to me, I was travelling with some quite high ranking military officer (in “civvies”) making his way to the capital. The local commander at this half way point had laid on lunch for his superior. Tajik hospitality would not allow the exclusion of anyone travelling in the party so I felt obliged to join in fully as we made our way through shurbo, (soup with mutton), osh (fried rice with mutton), choi, non (bread), fruit and, of course a bottle of vodka (the cap of which can, in all good form, never be put back on). I’m not sure what we were toasting, perhaps the resurrection of Stalin, but it all seemed a good idea at the time and it certainly helped to shorten the journey. Before I knew it I was shaking hands all round as I alighted in the familiar streets of Dushanbe.

I think I prefer lunch with the General to kayaking with the Taliban for my Pamir adventure.

Down to Business

I don’t want to give the impression that developing tourism is just gadding about the country eating, drinking, enjoying the scenery and testing exotic bathroom arrangements. That’s the tough part, of course, but there’s also sharing experience and trying to influence key stakeholders to adopt new ways of doing things.

The goal of VSO is to eliminate poverty and I believe that efforts to achieve this must be directed first and foremost at host country governments. It’s no good treating the symptoms without attacking the cause. There has been a lot of excellent work here to support the growth of tourism going back more than ten years but little of it has lasted. It has often been narrowly focused on specific regions or groups, effective so long as a project has been in place and grant funding has been coming through, but then allowed to peter out. This is partly because there have not been any supporting policy changes from central government. Regional marketing and product development projects, for example, are going to struggle if access to the country is difficult and expensive.

To address this we now have a comprehensive national Plan for the industry covering access, marketing, quality advice, visitor information, signage, tourism infrastructure and – generally – how to cope with those very difficult, demanding and capricious people we call tourists. Within this there are detailed plans for reforms in areas like the visa regime, air access and small business financing.

   

There is hardly a dissenting voice to the Plan, but that is deceptive. Changes threaten vested interests and a person's public position of country before self is very rarely wholly borne out in practice. We can expect some turbulence.

Anyway, the Plan will go to the newly-elected President in December and we are optimistic. One advantage of a “streamlined” democratic process is that, if approved, it can proceed fairly quickly to implementation.

Somon Palace : The Seat of Power

There has been one ray of sunshine already. Tourist visas for trips of up to 45 days are now available for £20. This is a marked improvement on the standard visa rates - which meant spending £60 to £80 – and also comes with a waiver on the need to register with the security services when in the country. So I’m expecting plane loads of Brits clogging up my trolley bus and favourite choikhona  any time soon.

As well as developing recommendations with government I have been acting out the professorial bit with lectures, presentations and workshops. Last week I was back in the town of Garm, in the east between the Fan Mountains and the Pamirs. 

Late Autumn in Garm

I was working with a group of youngsters who are interested in bringing tourism to the area. Their English is quite good but their grasp of economics and business comes from old Soviet textbooks…. This, as well as endearing local culture, showed through in some of our exchanges.

Me : “We should do some market research.”

Them : “Why?”

Me : “So we know what people want.”

Them : “Why do we want to know what people want?”...

Or

Me : “If we attract lots of visitors where will they stay?”

Them : “It’s OK we’ll find families who will take them.”

Me : “But we have to organise this on a commercial basis.”

Them : “No, don’t worry. Just tell them to turn up and we’ll look after them.”

Or

Me : “What can visitors do when they come here?”

Them : “We’ll take them to a Tajik wedding.”

Me : “Wouldn’t the bride and groom and their relatives want to have a say in this?”

Them : “Why?”..

The new Tajikistan marketing campaign - "Just Turn Up"

 Next week I’m off up into the Pamirs again for another workshop. I have a feeling that it’s me who is getting educated about hospitality and tourism.

Peace and Bread

You could let your life revolve round Rudaki. That makes Rudaki sound like a euphemism for a hard drug, but regular readers will know that Rudaki is our favourite son, the founder of modern Persian literature, whose name has been appropriated for every major road in every town and city in Tajikistan. So Rudaki in this context is the six lane, three mile long avenue that runs from north to south through Dushanbe.

There are tower blocks and supermarkets and restaurants and bars and government offices and choikhonas and parks along its course. Many people, I suppose particularly expatriates, feel no need to stray much from it. But this is a city of 700,000 people and most do not live, work and shop on Rudaki. Step 20 yards off on either side and you can enter a different world, perhaps one that is a bit more representative of Tajikistan. It’s a bit more run down - actually it’s quite a lot more run-down behind the stylish facades - but full of life.

I’ve been roaming the back streets for a while. I love walking around cities and Dushanbe is one of the best. Firstly it’s one of the safest cities I’ve ever been in – so long as you avoid crossing any roads. Traffic lights here are seen more as decorative than functional and, if heeded at all, seem to bring out the taurean in us all – red means accelerate and charge. There are stories of people making it to the central reservation of Rudaki and then having to be airlifted out because they couldn’t continue. Actually that’s not true; there is no central reservation on Rudaki. Oh, and two other essential rules of the road here : never drive without talking to someone on your mobile phone and always test your car horn every 15 seconds...

Anyway, all that digression aside, walking around Dushanbe is great. There is virtually no street crime and people don’t stare or panhandle. Some of the kids sometimes seem struck dumb by the oddity of a lone, grey foreigner but we always agree to live and let live…

Shouldn't he be in a museum?

There are lots of narrow streets lined with rough and ready walls punctuated by grandiose gates. There is an obsession with tall, ornate gates; obviously a message to the world about what lies behind. And what does lie behind is usually a house built around a small courtyard which is home to an extended family of maybe ten or twelve people.

Nice gates...

In contrast there are also Russian apartment blocks, built around large communal squares, where the children roam and people cook huge dishes of plov and bake in large, wood-fired kilns; where the women gossip and men pretend to be repairing things. Reminds me of the Glasgow tenements.

Sometimes I think I'll just hit her with it

It would be easy to get sentimental about this communal living but I’m sure there are stresses, feuds and rivalries fit for a Shakespeare play. Nevertheless, people seem generally happy.

That Othello... He's a right one!

Why are the streets safe? Why are most people apparently content with the re-election of their Presdient for a fourth term of office (yes, my wild prediction of the result was correct)? Why is there poverty with very little begging and very little – apparent – resentment? The answer seems to lie across three things. 

1. 1.  A high police presence. There are certainly a lot of policemen down Rudaki, but they are unarmed and mostly concerned with entrepreneurial endeavours. There are few in the back streets.
2. 2. Religion. This is an Islamic country where the emphasis is on peace, hospitality, sharing, duty and family.
3. 3.      Trauma. The civil war between 1992 and 1997 took at least 50,000 lives and made a great many more homeless. To this day nobody can quite explain what it was about but there is unanimity that it mustn’t be allowed to happen again.

As I was told, “we are happy because we have peace and bread.” This could be a philosophy worth reflecting on.

Election Time

It’s the Presidential elections next week so, even whilst trying to be apolitical, it’s too much of a subject not to comment. Anyway, being on the KGB popularity list is at least still a bit exclusive; having your phone and email bugged by the CIA is just so common and unfashionable..

There are six candidates including the incumbent President. Apparently all five challengers have already said they think the current government is doing a good job and one is reported to have advised his supporters not to vote for him but to vote for the incumbent. Now I may be a bit naïve politically, but these strike me as unusual tactics if you want to replace the current head of state.  Perhaps they are just being brutally honest and want to avoid the manufactured partisanship that characterises most democracies and has recently brought the United States government to a complete standstill. Perhaps…

Most would agree that the election is a foregone conclusion. The incumbent President, Emomali Rahmon, will be elected for his fourth term in office. There are stories of shady dealings and the use of the State apparatus to neutralise any real opposition, which are probably true but such measures  hardly seem worth it. Most people have never heard of any other politicians and, most dispiritingly, there is little faith in the democratic system anyway. Few see the solutions to their many problems as lying in free elections and voting for someone else. And who can blame them?

Subtle reminder at the University

The “triumph” of liberal democracy has turned a bit sour, at least in central Asia. The much heralded benefits of the free market economy and political freedom have not arrived. The old elites are firmly in control, richer and stronger than ever, having taken democracy on board sufficiently to get greater than ever legitimacy for their rule. In so many countries of the world, it has not proved too difficult for the powerful elites to shape democracy into just another system to meet their own ends.

What people want is security, fairness, justice, health care, rights to property and the freedom to better themselves. Democracy doesn’t in itself deliver these things. It’s perhaps the vanity of politicians all over the world that has persuaded us that it should and could. I don’t know what the alternative is; as Churchill said following his post war election defeat, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” I guess the issue is that positive economic and social development is not just about the system of government. It’s more complicated than that but it’s tempting to think there is just this one simple answer.

Snow on the hills creeps towards Dushanbe

Meanwhile, life in Dushanbe goes on, saved from the dreariness of being battered by political campaigning. The snow is on the hills around the city and the price of tomatoes is rocketing. I feel a kind of nostalgia being in a country where fruit and vegetables come and go with the seasons. It reminds me of the treat of “new potatoes” arriving in the shops in Scotland back in my youth. Nostalgia aside however, it’s a step back for the economy. Despite being 93% mountains, the country has some rich fertile land and good quality production. The Soviet systems of cold storage, packing plants and distribution have all been allowed to collapse, though, and so we move from surplus to scarcity as the seasons change. For our landlord and his extended family that has meant an industrious period of peeling, cooking and pickling everything that has been around for the last month or two. I’ve seen the cat move with surprising alacrity recently; obviously doesn’t want to end up pickled in a jar for winter…

Rewriting History

Tajikistan ranks 122^nd out of 140 countries in terms of cultural resources in the World Economic Forum Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index. This gem of information may have escaped you but it strikes me as surprising given that the country can boast over five thousand years of recorded history (see History blog from August). We’ve had the Persians, the Greeks, the Turks, the Chinese, the Arabs, the Samanids, the Mongols, the Imperial Russians, the Soviet Russians and even, more recently, some Scots.. But, true enough, there’s not an awful lot for the culture seeking tourist to see. It’s as if everyone cleaned up carefully on departure to leave no trace – or someone else did, later.

I can see three main reasons for this. Firstly, the country is devoid of signage, maps and interpretation to avoid the security risk of anyone knowing where they are, so it’s difficult to find the cultural sites. Secondly, the best tangible relics are probably all in St. Petersburg (and what’s left probably went to London). Thirdly, whole swathes of history are “no-go” areas. The Soviets were not keen on much before 1917; their story seems to be that nothing meaningful really happened before the triumph of the proletariat, unless it could be dug up and given a scientific label.

The new, imposing National Museum in Dushanbe is a case in point. It’s big and airy, and there’s stuff from 3,000 BC; then lovely frescoes from the 8^th century AD; then pictures of the current President meeting Tony Blair and Barak Obama. If you like glass cases with odd shaped bits of stone and metal, with the added excitement of indecipherable labels in cyrillic, then this is your place. But what happened  between the stone age and Tony Blair?

Then there’s the National Museum of Antiquities, which is a much older building where they keep older bits of stone in older glass cases. This does house the world famous sleeping Buddha of Adjina-Tepe however. Excavated in 1966, it’s 13 metres long and over 1500 years old, the largest Buddha in Central Asia. It’s very impressive.

Sleeping Buddha

I exaggerate about the dearth of sites and artefacts a bit of course but it does seem that successive waves of rulers have either eliminated the past or rewritten it to fit their present. We found Lenin (below) for example on a bit of waste ground behind an office in a small town called Aini. This revisionism makes you nostalgic for dog-eared school history text books describing the Tudors and the Stuarts. (Though we’re not completely innocent given our own reinterpretation of history for the small screen. The recent series on The Tudors certainly revealed more than I learned at university).

Yesterday's Hero

Tajikistan is a new, old country… History is now being rewritten again, this time to create a national identity around two figures from safe berths in the distant past, Abu Abdollah Jafar ibn Mohammad Rudaki and Isma'il ibn Ahmad Somoni.

Rudaki is acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of modern Persian literature, and by modern we mean here 9^th century AD. He was a singer and a poet and a royal favourite of the Samanid dynasty but it’s difficult to tell how good he really was as most of his reputed 1.3 million verses have been destroyed long since. We have to rely a bit on hearsay so there’s not much in the museums. That’s Kate below getting inspiration from him in the park (a funny way to get inspiration you might think)..

Kate and Rudaki

Ismail Somoni  was the most famous ruler of the Samanid dynasty referred to above. He built up Bukhara as one of Islam's most glorious cities, attracted scholars, artists, and doctors of law into the region, developed the economy and organized a powerful army to extend his empire. That’s his modest new statue below. We also have somoni as the national currency, Peak Somoni  as the highest mountain, Somon Air as a national airline etc. etc.

Ismail Somoni

There’s a lot more rich heritage out there amongst the people of the country that is being suppressed however. I feel this can’t be good though I’m not sure how important it is. At least we don’t have people bleating on about historical injustices and fanning the flames of intolerance and prejudice, but where are the lessons from the past to guide the present?

There’s one thing for sure, we need a bit more than the lost verses of Rudaki to build up cultural tourism. Did Genghis and Stalin realise the damage they were doing to the future of the tourism industry when they rampaged around central Asia? I think not, and the new history should hold them to account.

Charm in Garm

A road less travelled this week; off along the ancient Silk Road to Garm and the Rasht Valley, to the north western edge of the great Pamir mountains. It’s less travelled by foreigners at least which, in Tajikistan tourism terms, means it’s like going to the far side of the moon because the Sea of Tranquility is getting too “trippery” with all those folk from Apollo 11…

It’s not clear why few foreigners come this way so it’s a fact-finding mission for me – again, that tough job that somebody’s got to do. The scenery is fantastical and almost lunar. The narrow winding valleys of the Fann mountains and Badakshan here give way to broad valleys and high plateaux. We’re going toward Kyrgyzstan and the nomadic tribes crossing miles of grassland with their yurts and yaks. It’s breathtaking.

On the way we are able to make a major contribution to the development of Tajikistan civilization by introducing the roadside picnic. You know, find a nice spot; park; get out; decide there is a better spot further on; get in ; move; get out etc. Get the flatbread and tomatoes and cheese and plates and fruit and apricot juice and water out. Drop a sliced tomato face down in the grass. Sit uncomfortably on some rocks and eat lunch. It’s not that we’re completely insensitive to cultural differences but we’ve only just noticed the puzzled stares from cars as they distractedly disappear over the side of ravines next to the road. Our young guide and translator, Masur, politely explains to us that Tajiks do not do this and simply find it bizarre. He is, though, intrigued by the whole idea and plans to introduce it to his friends.  In fact later in the trip – after we have visited his house – he produces home made bread, delicately-flavoured home made cake (similar to Greek baklava) and fruit from the family orchard to complement our two day old, slightly sweaty cheese.

Choosing the picnic spot away from the crowds

Could the introduction of the picnic spread goodwill and stem the advances of the Taleban in central Asia? We feel we may be on to something. We need a massive NATO picnic deployment offensive.

We stop for some impromptu dancing at a riverside wedding celebration before we get to Garm, a town still bearing the scars of Tajikistan’s civil war in the 1990s when over 50,000 died. Much of the fighting was in this area between militant Muslims and the Tajikistan army. The people are absolutely charming; how do these things happen?

We have tea in the living room of Masur’s childhood home in the mountains with panoramic views down the valley. You can pick juicy apples and pears from the window and watch chickens and a cow happily free-ranging in the garden.  We visit an exotic horticulturalist with his own botanical gardens and his own museum, with 3,000 year old coins dug up locally and pictures of his father wearing rows of medals from Red Army service at Stalingrad. We travel through to Jirgital, a frontier-like town not far from the Kygyzstan border, and see some of the lesser Pamir peaks, a mere 5,400 metres up (or, in Scottish terms, four Ben Nevises). 

The view from Masur's house

We learn about Buzkashi, a wild game in which men on horseback battle in a makeshift arena over possession of a dead goat.  The winner is the one who can hang on to the carcass for long enough to do a complete circuit of the field of play at a thundering gallop, and then drop it into a tyre placed in the centre.  Unfortunately, as it is only played in the snow and we are still in bright, sunny autumn, we can’t saddle up and give it a go. We meet the only woman in the area who plays, though, an American from California, and discuss the prospects of introducing this exciting sport into our respective countries. We decide a lot of the appeal might be lost if there were rules, a referee, padding for the players, commercial breaks and the substitution of a teddy bear for the goat. Some of it would not look completely out of place on the terraces of football grounds however.

Buzkashi (courtesy of Janice Setser)

Too soon we are trundling back down to Dushanbe, bowled over by another side of the country that we’d love to see appreciated by lots and lots of visitors but, at the same time, fearful of the consequences of tourism success.

Tourism begins at home

Kate, my better half, is here for a visit. As a tourism development advisor, I can claim my first big success; I’ve persuaded someone to come. I’ve found the elusive formula for attracting tourists. All you have to do is marry them and pay for the ticket and provide the accommodation….. This may not be the answer for mass tourism but it’s a start.

We’ve just been up in the Fann mountains north of Dushanbe. Our first stop was Iskandar Kul – Alexander Lake – named for Alexander the Great who passed here on his way to invading India in 326BC. Legend has it that he fought at the lake and his great war horse, Bucephalus, drowned there but occasionally comes ashore on summer nights bearing Alexander to excite the girls. Mmm..?

Iskandar Kul

The lake is one of the most beautiful sights in the country. The teal-coloured waters reflect layers of rugged peaks stretching all the way back to Uzbekistan and the air, at well over 2,000 metres above sea level, is crisp and intoxicating – like inhaling a very dry vodka martini.

We stayed in a little, lost, Shangri-la like valley up a very narrow road beyond the lake with some charming locals who, you felt, had relatives who knew someone who had known someone who had been with Alexander… Reality and myth seem to sit very closely together in this rarefied atmosphere. We sat on the floor and had the national dish, oshi plov  - rice fried with carrots and pieces of lamb – little bowls of green tea and lots of ‘non,’ (flat, oily bread), for dinner. There was very tasty water melon and chaka, one of the most revolting concoctions of salt and dried yoghurt balls known to man.We tried to remember not to blow our noses at the table or show the soles of our feet – two cardinal sins in polite company but Kate immediately did the former with gusto, stunned silence, and I fell over revealing the latter. Good job there is a degree of tolerance for foreign devils.

Homestay Sharboz

Afterwards, we trekked up the hill to the toilet, looked at the star filled sky and then lay on unsprung mattresses on the floor,  covering ourselves with more of the same to make a very colourful mattress sandwich. It was half past seven in the evening. I slept better than I have done for years…

In the morning, water was brought from the river and a fire was lit under an old iron boiler. We stood in a wooden cabin, filled a zinc bucket with warm water from behind the boiler and then poured it over ourselves with balers. It’s a cross between a sauna and a loony dook. Marvellous. Who needs a £20,000 fitted bathroom.

Our next homestay lay up a different valley where we traced a chain of 7 lakes ever higher towards the sky. Homestays are the local equivalents of B&Bs but with the added allure of being a bit closer to nature; best to block the door to your room at night, for example, if you don’t want to find yourself sharing with a goat by morning.

Afternoon tea

It’s getting cold at 2,000 metres in October but fortunately our host brought out an electric fire over dinner of fried lake fish and – rather surprisingly - crinkle cut chips. Also fortunately, we had a young lad with us to translate - an Afghan refugee living in Dushanbe who has acquired excellent English – and we chatted late into the night (to almost 10 p.m.).

Our host told us of his plans to expand his homestay with an extra storey on an outhouse and a swimming pool; we thought, but felt it a bit churlish to say, that it might be better to start with a toilet you can sit on rather than a hole in the ground that requires considerable fortitude to approach after dark and could lead to disaster if you happen to have a bad hip and a poor sense of balance. We talked of corruption, of the forced purchase by everyone in the country of shares in the Roghun dam scheme – which looks good on the paper, where it will probably remain forever – and the going rate for such crimes as having a roof rack without a licence. We agreed things were going to get better.

Solar powered tea

The next day we had solar powered tea and then drove to the seventh lake, had a picnic at the sixth and then walked back down; the mountain scenery fantastic, the feeling of the villages biblical. I estimate that there were about 7 tourists in this whole 60 mile valley and, other than us, they were expatriates living in Kabul and escaping the confines of a conflict zone. So there’s plenty of room, though we can’t offer the special spouse deal to all visitors I'm afraid.

Picnic at the 6th Lake

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Brides in the botanics

Sunday is a day for strolling in Dushanbe’s botanical gardens. Under a cloudless blue sky and a pleasant 30°C it’s a lovely time to study the local flora; and the most dazzling of all the flora are Dushanbe’s new brides, out in full bloom.

One of the many rituals of marriage here (see earlier blog, the Wedding, for more) is the parade of the bride and groom before their relatives and friends and what better place to do this than round the attractively laid out grounds of the botanical gardens. Literally dozens of wedding parties converge on this green corner of the city every Saturday and Sunday to celebrate and to see and be seen.

It’s really the parade of the bride. The groom is just there to give a contrasting dark background to the radiance of his partner. (Isn’t that just it, for life….?). Restrained simplicity is not the order of the day as she glides along in her stunning white meringue of a dress with the wedding party at a respectful ten paces behind. Photographers buzz around like paparazzi recording every step and expression and relieved parents sigh and beam and eye up the opposition.

Negotiating the bushes

Everyone joins in respectfully and so they should; this is the culmination of a big joint effort. Almost all the marriages in Tajikistan are arranged by the families. The bride and groom may look a bit tongue tied, but they’ve probably only met once before and then under observation. But negotiations have no doubt been going on for over a year through emissaries. Spies will have gone out from both camps to check on the other family, and friends of the prospective couple will have been cornered for interrogation. Educational attainment and job prospects have been weighed; relative ages, place of birth, photographs and, most of all, reputation of the other family are pored over. The question of money will have arisen. Weddings cost upwards of $10,000 – for each family – and in a country with a per capita Gross National Income of just over $2,000 per annum, this is a perpetual concern, especially for the family with daughters. How can I find the money? How can I not find the money? The deal is done.

Is the bride happy? She is certainly getting her day of superstardom but after this it’s probably farewell to any further education and off to live with the groom’s family – where she will be confined to the house for the first 40 days so that she can make a start on the next generation (presumably with some help from the man in the dark suit..). If her family have chosen well, though, she will settle in to a supportive environment with someone who shares her interests and cares for her well-being. Divorce rates are very low by western standards.

My language teacher faces a dilemma. She has just turned down a marriage offer for her 20 year old daughter. The prospective in-laws have had little education and their son doesn’t have a job. Both factors they consider could be very limiting for their daughter's future security and happiness. Not very romantic but probably a good decision, especially as her daughter wants to continue in college. But this is a country desperately short of marriageable men - due to migration, civil war and unemployment – and a woman not married by 25 is considered to be over the hill. Will there be other offers? Will she end up the second or third wife of an older man? Will she miss out on her day in the sun, her promenade in the botanics?

From Your Own Correspondent

The BBC caught up with me yesterday. “From Our Own Correspondent” on Radio 4 featured Jamie Coomarasamay reporting from Tajikistan. I feel the hot breath of state subsidised competition on the neck of my – and your – exclusive news service!

I’d like to undermine this upstart by pointing out all the inaccuracies in the feature but it was a pretty fair representation of some of the idiosyncracies of life in Dushanbe. There is a building boom here, with construction by the ever enveloping Chinese and financing from who knows where. Many feel they know exactly “where” and there are furtive nods and whispered asides to a great selection of conspiracy theories. But surely even gangsters and traffickers have more sense than to invest in rickety tower blocks in an earthquake zone where the economy is struggling and rents are low? The one theory I haven’t heard is that it’s a reborn Royal Bank of Scotland amassing another property portfolio. I might try and start that rumour myself…

Before

The greatest pity is that robust, quite stylish, Soviet 1930s buildings in beautiful, shady avenues are being replaced by glass and breeze-block towers on deforested highways. There’s an interesting article on this on the Eurasianet service http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67493 if you want to feel really fed up. (Ha, Mr Coomarasamay, one up on you there).

After

I have not – as yet – been to an early morning circumcision party in the Choikhona as Jamie recommends. I’m too afraid I might be invited but not as an observer… It could be another way to make me feel more at home. I have, though, roamed the Kafkaesque corridors of the National Library where you take books in on loan rather than take them out. And, of course, I have marvelled at the world’s tallest flagpole, the erection and maintenance of which is not as easy as it sounds. Just try beating 165 metres with a few poles tied together in your backyard.

The Flagpole

I have eaten the Plov and the Mantu mentioned as well as my favourite, a noodle dish called Laghmon. As with everything, done well, they’re all great. With no Michelin Guide here to the eateries I’ve had to trust to instinct in choosing where to eat. So that’s another potential career – food guide and writer – struck off my list. Given some regrettable choices I can only say that sometimes one’s best instincts seem to take a holiday.

Laghmon

The Presidential election is in November. If William Hill is prepared to take my house, my family and even my old model railway set, I’m prepared to bet everything on the result. This may sound rash but I have a pretty good idea who is going to win. I’m not going to tell you though as it will weaken the odds.

Whilst I hesitate to recommend the broadcasting competition I realise that, without listening to Jamie Coomarasamay’s despatch, the foregoing must appear more unintelligible than usual. It’s available on the BBC i-player (From Our Own Correspondent, Radio 4, 28^th September 2013) and downloadable as a podcast if you have the app. You can probably get it in Urdu and braille as well and free at participating stores etc. What it is to have rich backers.

We do, though, have our own You Tube site for VSO in Tajikistan which I have been asked to advertise and where you can find all that the state broadcaster fails to show - well, perhaps not all - including this feature on tourism in the country with some very unknown and inexpensive presenters; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zHIE_ofFPQ.

As I am advertising VSO I should add the disclaimer that the views expressed in this blog are completely personal and do not represent the views of VSO. Neither are they the views of the BBC – though I’m open to offers on that one.

Taking the Rough with the Smooth

My first Dangucha

This weekend started – as all good weekends should – on Friday evening. A Tajik colleague of mine turned up at my house at 6 p.m. with a giant pot of Dangucha, - a dish from his village the virtues of which he had been extolling for some time - freshly made by his wife, and complete with crockery, cutlery and table cloth…. We duly tucked in; he with a little more gusto than me. Dangucha is made from a sheep’s head, legs and stomach plus beans and corn. It’s not quite as good as it sounds… but it was a really sweet gesture.

Dushanbe Afghan Reel Society

It was then party-time. VSO runs a programme called International Citizen Service (ICS) in several countries across the world. In Tajikistan a dozen or so young people came over from the UK for 12 weeks and teamed up with Tajik and Afghan counterparts, stayed with local families and worked together to stage a one day cultural festival in Dushanbe called Rangorang. (I made a short and completely unbiased video of how wonderful this was which you can see on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvEQjwtMUJo). Tonight was the farewell party which was a great do, despite all the tears at parting. I learned an Afghan dance that I’m convinced is a local take on the eightsome reel.

Saturday morning was up to the local market again – where roast chicken futures seem to have taken a battering and I came away with my prize for a mere 17 somoni (£2.50) this week. Then it was domestic toil, I won’t go into it – I don’t want everyone crying while reading this – before the weekly connection with the UK via a trip to a local bar to watch live Premier League football. All was nicely teed up, with beer in hand, Liverpool v Southampton on the big screen and Chelsea v Fulham to come. 10 minutes into the first game, the screens went blank. The feed that we get from Russian TV was cut. This was either the dark hand of Vladimir Putin strengthening his grasp over central Asia – I think the most likely reason - or someone had forgotten to pay the bill. Either way, the manager did his best to get a substitute but I’m not sure the live coverage of Derby County against Reading with a commentary in Arabic was quite what we had hoped for.

Trying to look the part

Sunday is hike day. We take a minibus to some scenic spot outside the city chosen by our infallible local guide and tramp into the hills. It didn’t start well for me though. I was all set with hiking boots, rugged shorts, classy shades and a rucksack full of essentials. However, when I got on the bus to go to the rendezvous a young man immediately jumped up and offered me his seat. It kind of takes the wind out of your sails when you are setting off to conquer the mountains of Tajikistan and then someone offers you a seat on the bus because they think you’re too frail to stand up. Anyway, it was a great hike and I made it without the sedan chair. We went up to Obi Garm, a small ski-ing and health resort from Soviet times. Tremendous views and a pleasant breeze as we got away from the 35°C in the valley. I’m not sure I’ll try the ski-ing here though. The main lift centre, pictured, looks like it could do with a bit of TLC.

Obi Garm Ski Centre

Back exhausted, but a great weekend. There’s rough with the smooth, but all part of the rich experience. (At least that’s what’s going in the tourism brochures).

Badakhshan

I am in Tajikistan to help develop tourism. What a great brief that is! It’s almost as good as saying I’m in the pub to check that the beer is OK; actually it’s better. I have to get out there and see the country and sample the facilities. So some tourism promotion.

Since being here I’ve been lucky enough to go by helicopter a couple of times now from Dushanbe to Khorog in the Pamir mountains east of here. It’s a spectacular trip involving crossing northern Afghanistan, as you can see from the map, and then following the Panj river south.

Dushanbe to Khorog

This is Badakhshan, some of the wildest territory on earth and home to Shia Ismaili Muslims whose spiritual leader is the Aga Khan. The aerial hitch-hike is courtesy of the Aga Kahn Foundation which does an immense amount of charitable work in the area.

The views are stupendous. Is that Muminabad we’ve just passed over way, way below? Is that the Vanch valley on the left with Arnavad Peak at 5,992 metres and – beyond that - is that the Ismoil Somoni Peak at an incredible 7,594 metres? I haven’t a clue. It’s all just jagged, snow topped mountains dropping steeply down into scalpel cut narrow valleys. Note to myself for tourism promotion, get someone to climb up and label all the mountains…

Weaving between the peaks, Badakhshan

My sense of direction is not completely lost though. All this gazing at the view seems to have diverted attention from looking ahead where I see a mountain heading straight for us. I suggest to the pilot that we may want to veer left a bit. He seems grateful for the prompt, although I don’t think he feels it was absolutely necessary for me to bang on his ear phones quite so hard.

Left a bit.....

It is quite ethereal. Sitting strapped in air conditioned splendour, in comfortable arm chairs, taking pictures and looking forward to lunch in an hour. Below us is a world untouched by mankind for centuries (except for the Bin Laden lookalikes I feel I can see behind every boulder). The snow comes. The snow melts. The peaks glisten in the sun. The rivers run on cutting between the mountains. It doesn’t half make you feel insignificant. The terrain is so varied but so rugged. Tiny settlements cling to the banks of rivers where there is a thread of land but otherwise it’s miles and miles of defiant, raw nature.

It's a long way down - to nowhere..

It’s a mixed sadness and relief to reach Khorog and the small airstrip in the mountains. How did anyone get here before there were helicopters? And why? And I’m getting mixed feelings about why I should want to encourage them to open up to thousands more visitors..

Terra Firma, Khorog International