KHATLON, Tajikistan — Tajik authorities say a Tajik national has been killed while fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Tag: Soviet Union
Silk Road Reporters
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March, Western nations have imposed sanctions on Russia, including on its financial and energy sectors, as well as on a number of Russian nationals in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. In response, on Aug. 6 Putin imposed year-long food bans on the United States, European Union member states, Australia, Canada and Norway. Russia has also banned the transit of agricultural goods from Belarus and Kazakhstan following its embargo on EU food imports.
From the $43 billion of agricultural products Russia purchased abroad in 2013, $25 billion are now banned. According to Russian statistics, imports accounted for about 40 percent of household spending on food.
For the older Russian consumers this echoes memories of empty Soviet supermarkets, while the ban will likely spur inflation, currently hovering at about 7 percent this year.
Tajikistan: Community Agriculture | Global Food Security
August 17, 2010—Farmers who once relied on food aid, and were too poor to buy seeds, are once again farming remote parts of Tajikistan.
Ten years ago, the Red River watershed and its people were ravaged by a brutal civil war and the collapse of the Soviet agrarian system.Today trees, bees and livestock are raised again, thanks in part to a project supported by the World Bank that aims to help farmers—working in groups–to produce more and earn more while rehabilitating the ecosystem.
via Tajikistan: Community Agriculture | Global Food Security.
Tajikistan: Tourist Attractions – YouTube
Tajikistan: Tourist Attractions – YouTube.
http://youtu.be/pGrEbYFT-Xw
Дараи Яғноби Тоҷикистон – Yaghnob valley, Tajikistan – YouTube
Pamir
PASSES
Every ridge and region of Pamir has its passes’ set of any complication category.
In this case, passes from 2B and higher prevail, the number of passes with 1A and 1B complication is not great. The height of passes in the whole is in the limits from 4000 to 6000 meters. The height of general mass of passes is about 5000 meters, the number of passes exceeding this height is also considerable.
Thus treks and expeditions on Pamir are connected with a long continuous staying on the altitudes of over 4000 meters, it happens that the time of a continuous staying on the altitudes over 5000 meters sometimes reaches its highest value (about half of a month).
As a rule, passes and mountains of Pamir require long up and down approach with getting through water obstacles, glaciers, snow- capped ice slopes and rocky areas. Passes and interesting to climb are mainly located in remote, difficult-to-access regions (the Lenin’s Peak from the North is an rare exception). The approach to many of them is possible only from reserved areas where you can run only through complicated passes or by using helicopter. For more complicated passes the passage of the main passing obstacle with neighboring up approaches takes 4-5 days. Passes 1A and 1B being inside the region often takes one-two days walk. During passes’ walking often happen overnight stayings on the stone moraines, on the snow, on the ice, on the slopes and saddle of passes, sometimes arises necessity to build neve blocks walls and in digging of snowy caves. Getting over passes requires the usage of complete set of climbing gear, technical means and tactical methods which are practiced in mountaineering.
TREKKING AND MOUNTAINEERING IN PAMIR AREA
Pamir is characterized by 4-6 categories of complication for the trekking and pass-hopping routes. The elaboration of rules for logical treks of less complication with running through the everlasting snow zone is difficult. Objectively, this fact is caused by rather small number of low difficulty passes, and also its scanty comfortable combination passes of other complication. So, Pamir is more suitable area to mountaineering. Natural-climatic conditions of Pamir and characteristics of passes requiring high physical, technical, tactical training of trekkers make from tour safety point of view the organization of the treks of 3 and less complication category is too problematic. Climbing routes are mostly ice, snow and neve, less rocky, that’s can be considered as common for high mountain areas.
Administratively Pamir lies mainly on the territory of Tajikistan. Only the northern outskirts of Zaalaisky ridge descending to the Alaiskaya valley belong to Kirgiziya.
The main means of communication on Pamir is automobile and aviation transport. The basis of automobile connection here is the Cross-Pamir road which begins from the town Osh in the Ferganskaya valley. This road crosses Alaiskaya valley from the North to the South, stretches to the South on the Pamir plateau along the river Piandge to the North and then to the West towards the city Dushanbe (the capital of Tajikistan, which is connected by air to the Moscow, Novosibirsk and some of the Central Asia states). From this main road, roads of the local importance are constructed to the South and to the East along Piandge, there are small parts by the valleys of rivers Shahdara, Bartang, Yazgulem, Vanch, Obi-Hingou. Near the lake Kharakul truck road goes to the valleys of rivers Khokhuibel and Tanimas. The city of Dushanbe is connected with such small towns as Murgab and Horog, with district centers Rushan, Vanch by local airlines. There is also an airline to the towns Tavil-Dara and Jirgatal situating on the western borders of Pamir. The start and the finish points of treks belong to this transport network.
GEOGRAPHY
Pamir is the highest alpine chain in the South of the ex-SU, these days the territory of the Kirghizia (Kirgiztan) and Tajikistan. It occupies the area of approximately 60 000 square kilometers and presents the extensive network of eversnow- covered ridges and vast intermountain valleys which form Pamir plateau.
EXPLORATION HISTORY
Mountaineering Pamir exploration began together with the first research expeditions of Soviet Academy of Sciences on Pamir in the 1928 – 1933ths. Tourist expeditions on Pamir were firstly made in 50ths and for the time being Pamir is the most popular outdoor mountainous region among those of CIS. In mountaineering practical experience Pamir’s boundaries are accepted on the basis of ridges’ orography and their trek’s resources. From the East Pamir is limited by Sarykolsky ridge on the axis of which there are borders of ex-USSR and China. The southern border passes along the river Piandge separating Tajikistan and Kirgizia from Afghanistan and the northern one is limited by the river Kyzyl -Soo (Kyzylsoo), consecutively adopting the name Sourhob and then Vakhsh. In the West Pamir finishes with the ridges outskirts – of Peter The Great and Darvazsky.
The highest ridges and massive glaciers are clustered in the western part of Pamir. Most ridges’ peaks are more than 6000 meters high and sometimes rise over 7000 meters high. There are 3 of 4 peaks above 7000 meters high on Pamir including the highest mountain of ex-USSR – Communism Peak in Akademii Nauk range (recently this peak is re-named to “Ismoili Somoni peak”), and Lenin peak (7134 m) – popular peak for those who’re trying their 1st attempt of high-altitude climbing. The highest top of the whole Pamir area however situated in the Chinese part of the East Pamir – it is Muztag Ata peak (7546 m).
The plateau of 4000 meters high and more occupies the eastern part of Pamir and stretches from its north to the south, being only once separated by Muzcol ridge.
Communism Peak
Peak Korjenevskoy 1
Peak Korjenevskoy 2
Muztag Ata (China)
Lenin Peak
via Pamir (http://www.adventuretravel.ru/eng/Pamir/index.html).
Saudi Aramco World : Land of the Naphtha Fountain
Land of the Naphtha Fountain
Written by Zayn Bilkadi
Illustrated by Bob Lapsley
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the undeveloped or underdeveloped oil resources of the new nations that were formerly Soviet republics have been much in the news. But that news is in fact very old. The existence of rich oil resources in the region from the western slopes of the Caspian Sea basin to the mountains of Afghanistan has been known for millennia.
The ancient Greeks and Romans could not help but notice on their travels the spectacular “eternal fires” that dotted the landscape all the way from Baku, in present-day Azerbaijan, to Persia and Turkmenia. Legend has it that one of the servants of Alexander the Great accidently struck oil while trying to pitch a tent for his master in Turkmenia. According to the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, Alexander the Great observed burning natural oil wells in Bactria, which comprised today’s northern Afghanistan and parts of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (See Aramco World, May-June 1994).
The land from northwestern Iran to Azerbaijan was known in ancient times as Media, where the most numerous “eternal fires,” or burning oil seeps, probably inspired Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Persians that dates from roughly 600 BC. “The Pillars of Fire” near Baku became a center of worship and pilgrimage. The title of Zoroastrian priests was athravan, or “keeper of the fire.” Even the word Azerbaijan itself is rooted in the ancient Persian aderbadagan, “garden of fire.”
Neither Romans nor Persians, however, left us records of the trade in oil that must have existed in the region in ancient times. Such records were only written centuries later by the Arabs, who conquered the Caucasus within only 26 years of the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 and who, by 751, had become masters of Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent and Kashgar. The newly Muslim lands then included all the world’s known, major oil-producing regions outside China. Sargis Tmogveli, a Georgian scholar, quotes on that high point of caliphal power:
Thou art master of Eran and T’huran;
From China to Qirwan,
All is thine and under thy command.
In the Caucasus, the city of Tiflis—now Tblisi, the capital of Georgia—grew into a center of trade between the Muslim state and northern Europe. Gold and silver coins have been found in the city that date to the ninth century and were minted in Baghdad, Muhammadiyyah (in Armenia), Kufa, Basra, Aran and Balkh, as well as in Africa and India. In addition, according to the Arab geographer al-Maqdisi, Georgia had become an important exporter of naphtha and bitumen to Baghdad. Beyond that, the region was also strategically important to the caliphate: It was a buffer province facing northern Byzantium.
From the Archives
Documenting the first exhibition of Russian collector George Costakis’s holdings of early 20th-century Russian artists in the United States, the catalogue Art of the Avant-Garde in Russia: Selections from the George Costakis Collection is an invaluable resource for scholars of art of the avant-garde in Russia. Art historian Angelica Zander Rudenstine’s introduction describes the Costakis Collection’s formation and important details from George Costakis’s biography. Margit Rowell reexamines certain premises about Russian and Soviet avant-garde art in the essay, “New Insights into Soviet Constructivism: Painting, Constructivists, Production Art.” The publication also includes color and black-and-white reproductions of selected works with entries and biographies of the 39 artists in the exhibition.
via From the Archives.
Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Country Profile: Tajikistan, January 2007
Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Country Profile: Tajikistan, January 2007 (PDF)
COUNTRY PROFILE: TAJIKISTAN January 2007
COUNTRY
Formal Name: Republic of Tajikistan (Jumhurii Tojikiston).
Short Form: Tajikistan.
Term for Citizen(s): Tajikistani(s).
Capital: Dushanbe.
Other Major Cities: Istravshan, Khujand, Kulob, and Qurghonteppa.
Independence: The official date of independence is September 9, 1991, the date on which Tajikistan withdrew from the Soviet Union.
Public Holidays: New Year’s Day (January 1), International Women’s Day (March 8), Navruz (Persian New Year, March 20, 21, or 22), International Labor Day (May 1), Victory Day (May 9), Independence Day (September 9), Constitution Day (November 6), and National Reconciliation Day (November 9).
Flag: The flag features three horizontal stripes: a wide middle white stripe with narrower red (top) and green stripes. Centered in the white stripe is a golden crown topped by seven gold, five-pointed stars. The red is taken from the flag of the Soviet Union; the green represents agriculture and the white, cotton. The crown and stars represent the country’s sovereignty and the friendship of nationalities.
Declassified CIA documents focusing on Tajikistan
GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCIES, 1995 VOLUME II: COUNTRY ESTIMATES | GIF | Created: 12/28/1994 | |
(EST PUB DATE) GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCIES, 1993-94 | GIF | Created: 10/1/1993 | |
THE REPUBLICS OF THE FORMER USSR: THE OUTLOOK FOR THE NEXT YEAR (SNIE 11-18.2-9 | GIF | Created: 9/1/1991 | |
WHITHER GORBACHEV: SOVIET POLICY AND POLITICS IN THE 1990S (NIE 11-18-87) | GIF | Created: 11/1/1987 |
Continue reading Declassified CIA documents focusing on Tajikistan