DESTINATION TAJIKISTAN

Facts at a Glance

Tajikistan's mountains are the setting for high, grassy meadows worthy of The Sound of Music. In summertime the wildflowers (including wild irises and edelweiss) are a riot of colour and trout lurk in the rushing streams. Marmots and pikas provide food for eagles and lammergeiers; the elusive snow leopard preys on the ibex, with which it shares a preference for crags and rocky slopes. Forests of Tian Shan spruce, larch and juniper provide cover for lynx, wolf, wild boar and brown bear.

Lowland Tajikistan veers between extrememly hot summers (an average maximum of 42°C/108°F in July) and extremely chilly winters (an average minimum of -12°C/10°F in January). From October through May fierce snowstorms rage in the mountains and the temperature can drop to -45°C (-49°F), making getting around almost impossible. On the plains, strong duststorms can be expected from June through October. These winds can last for five days or more. After the storm passes, it can take as long as 10 days for the dust to settle.

At the end of the 10th century cane a succession of Turkic invaders. Despite the different ethnicities, the two races cohabited peacefully, unified by religion - the Persian-speaking Tajiks absorbed Turk culture and the numerically superior Turks absorbed the Tajik people. Both were subject to conquests by the Mongols then later by Tamerlaine. From the 15th century the Tajiks were under the suzerainty of the emirate of Bukhara; in the mid-18th century the Afghans moved up to engulf all lands south of the Amu Darya river.

As part of the Russian Empire's thrust southwards, St Petersburg made a vassal state of the emirate of Bukhara, which also meant effective control over what now passes for northern and western Tajikistan. But the Pamirs, which account for the whole of what is now eastern Tajikistan, were quite literally a no-man's-land, falling outside the established borders of the Bukhara emirate and unclaimed by neighbouring Afghanistan and China. Russia was eager to exploit this mainly in its push to open up possible routes into British India. The Pamirs thus became the arena for the strategic duel Kipling was to immortalise as the Great Game, a grame in which Russia's players eventually prevailed, securing the region for the tsar.

Following the revolution of 1917, the Tajiks found themselves part of two Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs). Muslim guerillas resisted Bolshevik rule for four dirty years in which villages were razed and mosques destroyed. The first ever official Tajik state was formed in 1924 when the Soviet Border Commission slapped lines across Central Asia and formed an Automomous SSR under the auspices of the Uzbek SSR. In 1929 the Tajik state was upgraded to a full union republic, although Samarkand and Bukhara - where over 700,000 Tajiks still lived - remained in Uzbekistan. Moscow never really trusted Tajikistan: influential positions in the government were stacked with Russian stooges, efforts to industrialise and educate were sluggish and living standards remained low.

In the mid-1970s the underground Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) was founded, gathering popular support as a rallying point for Tajik nationalism. Although in 1979 there were demonstrations in opposition to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the first serious disturbances were in early 1990 when it was rumoured that Armenian refugees were to be settled in Dushanbe, which was already short on housing. This piece of Soviet social engineering sparked off riots, deaths and the imposition of a state of emergency. Further opposition parties emerged as a result of the crackdown.

During the Soviet era, Moscow and the Party had been the lid on a pressure cooker of long standing clan-based tensions. Tajikistan's various factions - Leninabaders from the north, Kulyabis from the south and their hostile neighbours from Kurgan-Tyube, Garmis from the east and Parmiris from the mountains - had all been kept in line under Soviet rule. When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 and Tajikistan declared independence, the country quickly descended into civil war. Imamali Rakhmanov, a Kulyabi, has been president since 1992 but opposition, particularly from the Islamic-democratic coalition, has been strident. The Kulyabi forces embarked on an orgy of ethnic cleansing directed at anyone connected with the Kurgan-Tyube or the Garm valley. Somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 people were killed in the fighting and there are half a million refugees.

Although a peace agreement was signed in June 1997 between President Imomali Rakhmonov and Islamic opposition leader Sayid Abdullo Nuri, tensions are still high. Rakhmanov is propped up by Russian-dominated CIS forces, mainly because Russia wants to protect the border with Afghanistan. Thousands of Tajik rebels are based in northern Afghanistan and cross border raids persist. Rakhmanov's government is unwilling to share power (opposition parties were outlawed for elections in 1994) and uninterested in reform. Elections are scheduled for 1999 but Rakhmanov has been vague about whether or not they'll actually happen. Western diplomats in Dushanbe predict that the situation will get a lot worse before it gets better.

The spring festival of Nauryz ('New Days') is by far the biggest holiday. It's an Islamic adaptation of pre-Islamic vernal equinox or renewal celebrations and can include traditional games, music and drama festivals, street art and colourful fairs. Important Muslim holy days, scheduled according to the lunar calendar, include Ramadan, the month of sunrise to sunset fasting; Eid-ul-Fitr, the celebrations marking the end of Ramadan; and Eid-ul-Azha, the feast of sacrifice, when those who can afford to, slaughter an animal and share it with relatives and the poor.

Banks may not even have a currency exchange counter but tourist hotels will often change money. It's often hard to get small bills but you should try to avoid ending up with wads of large notes in local currency since few people can spare much change. In fact, in much of Tajikistan there is a physical scarcity of money so if you do find a supply of rubls and the rate is fair, consider changing enough for your whole stay. In the Pamirs, the `economy' operates on a bartering system. Credit cards are most useful for picking your teeth.

Tipping runs counter to many people's Islamic sense of hospitality, and may even offend them. Shops have fixed prices but bargaining in bazaars is expected.

Secure behind the Fan Mountains, Khojand has managed to escape the ravages of Tajikistan's civil war, and has always been safe for travel. It remains the wealthiest part of the country, producing two-thirds of the country's industrial output. It's a comfortable, relaxed city with few spectacular attractions, but its pleasant river and grassy parks make it a fine place to drop out for a day or two. Khojand's Panchshanbe Bazar is a typical Central Asian market that bombards with sights, sounds and smells. The modest, relatively modern mosque, medrassa and mausoleum of Sheikh Massal ad-Din are also worth a visit.

The Pamirs

The Pamiris who inhabit the high altitude valleys speak a multitude of Pamiri dialects and are Ismailis, a breakaway sect of Shia Islam. They have no mosques, no clerics and no weekly holy day. The spiritual leader of the Ismailis is the Aga Khan, a Swiss-born businessman and horsebreeder revered by the Pamiris as a living god. It's the Aga Khan's charity that currently provisions the area, keeping starvation at bay, since the Pamiris backed the losing side in the civil war and haven't exactly been inundated with government aid.

Not having two potatoes to fry together has done nothing to lessen the hospitality of the Pamiris, whose natural inclination is to share. Since travel in the Pamir region is beset with obstacles - such as the absolute dearth of transport and food - you will no doubt experience this hospitality during your visit. There are plenty of isolated farmsteads along the mountain routes and these operate as rough-and-ready guesthouses. You can expect to be offered floor space, a pungent sheep-skin blanket and a hot bowl of sher chay, tea with goat's milk, salt and butter. To avoid the acute discomfort of discovering that your host has just slaughtered the last family chicken in your honour, bring all your own provisions into the area since there are no shops or eating houses in the Pamirs.

The main town in the region is Khorog (pop 22,000), the capital of the autonomous region of Gorno-Badahkshan. It lies 2000m (6560ft) above sea level, strung out irregularly along the slopes of the dashing Gunt river. The flight from Dushanbe to Khorog is one of the most exhilarating (and terrifying, depending on your confidence in Tajik pilots) you'll ever have the (mis)fortune to make. For most of the 45-minute flight the aircraft scoots along mountain valleys, flying in the shadow of rockfaces with its wingtips so close you could swear they were kicking up flurries of snow. If you get nervous, console yourself with the knowledge that only one plane has failed to make the trip in recent years - and that was shot down by rocket fire from Afghanistan.

• Journey to Khiva by Phillip Glazebrook and Apples in the Snow; A Journey to Samarkand by Geoffrey Moorhouse are accounts of travel in Central Asia on what turned out to be the eve of independence. Moorhouse's book was published in the USA as On the Other Side; A Journey Through Soviet Central Asia.
• The Silk Road: A History by Irene Frank and David Brownstone is a well illustrated and mapped history of the caravan routes that began crossing Central Asia in the 2nd century BC.
• Central Asia; A Traveller's Companion by Kathleen Hopkirk is a handy historical background to the region.
• The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk is a very readable history of the 19th-century cold war between Britain and Russia as it unfolded across Europe and Asia.
• Kim by Rudyard Kipling is the master storyteller's classic epic of the Raj during the Great Game.

Lonely Planet Guide