Dushanbe Day 3 - Things Not Found in Lonely Planet

As promised, my new Tajik friend 'Afar met me at 9 am to get our day started. There was some confusion on whether or not I needed to "register" with the local passport office (in addition to the visa I already had), and he volunteered to walk me over to the OVIR office to sort things out. The office was closed (contrary to its posted Saturday hours), but the guard said my hotel should take care of that, not me. So we went back to the hotel. There, they insisted that since I only have a 1 week visa, I didn't need to register. I remain a little sckeptical, but so it goes. Needless to say, I would have been one confused monkey without 'Afar - there's zero english at OVIR and not much more at my hotel.

The "Business" end of our day concluded, 'Afar took me to the Museum of National Antiquities (not to be confused with the National Museum). This elegant and meticulously clean museum (no shoes allowed) houses a wide assortment of stone, iron, and bronze age artifacts found in the current Tajik territory. It also has some vases, muslim tomb stones, and a decent array of jewelry and other small household objects - Basically, what you would expect to find via small archaeological digs.
Then there's the Buddha. This mammoth 40ft reclining statue is about 65% original, and like everything else in the museum, was actually uncovered after being entirely burried. The photo on the wall next to it (depicting its excavation in an otherwise unremarkable plot of dirt) is pretty impressive. It's a really nice Buddha.

What was so strange about the museum is that it divided the finds by their sites, and to a secondard degree chronologically. But they were not sorted by "styles" or "cultures." For most of the past 7 millenia, Central Asia has been a crossroads; both a nexus of intra-empire commerce, and also a region of regularly shifting boundaries and the rise and fall of local powers. So when you first look at a wall painting, for example, it takes some close looking to decide if you're actually looking at something that is Hindu, Islamic, Chinese, pre-Islamic Persian, Hellenistic, or one of the other indigenous civilizations to arise in Central Asia contemporary with the Egyptians, Greeks, and later Romans. Some times it's more obvious than others, but there are also fusions - Hindu gods with blatant Chinese features; Sogdian statues of Alexander the Great; etc. And then there's the just-bizarre: the seeming figures of Romulus and Remus suckling from a wolf - but there was little contact between Central Asia and "Rome" until near the end of the Byzantine empire.

On the plus side, the Buddha (a major attraction) on a Saturday is a virtual tourist magnet. In Tajikistan, this means there were about 6 people in the entire building. And that was where we met Mari and Rob, two American NGO interns in Dushanbe over the summer to learn Farsi (closely related to Tajik). Actually, Mari (who is from Massachusettes) is part Japanese, and for whatever reason passes very easily for Tajik. 'Afar and I walked past, thinking, "oh, another American (Rob is as obviously mid-western as I am) and His Tajik friend/guide." We then heard them talking - in English - and 'Afar turned to me, a little crushed, "Her English is Much better than mine, yes?"

I tried to downplay the discrepancy, but I didn't have much to go on. Luckily, they shortly thereafter introduced themselves, and 'Afar was a bit relieved. Mari's an undergrad at Yale studying international relations, and Rob is a law student at UPenn, with an interest in eventually being a diplomat. Though this didn't come up until later, and was not a topic of much discussion even then, I would not that Rob is a Mormon, and Mari was at least raised Quaker. Just saying, we made an odd slice of Americana.
Shortly after we started parousing the museum, we were joined by several military guards (who refused to take off their boots, and thus had to wear blue plastic surgical booties instead - sorry I didn't have the guts to snap a photo). They, and their bomb-sniffing German Shephard, had to sweep the museum - apparently the President of Latvia was in town on a state visit, and the Tajik Vice-President was giving him a tour of the museum.
We were rushed out right about the time we had finished anyway, and decided to go together to the very large tea house (I cannot pronounce, or even remember, the Tajik name) that 'Afar recommended. It was pretty incredible. Basically a large banquet hall, the walls and pillars are all ornately decorated with intricate wood carvings in floral and geometric designs, while the ceiling is a multi-depth labyrinth of colors, carvings, and shapes. Sometimes inverted pyramids, othertimes full domes. Rob said it looked like some of what he'd seen in Laos. I have no comparison. Kyrgyz rejoice in certain crafts associated with a long tradition of nomadism - felt rugs, embroidery, etc. The Tajiks are sedentary, and this demonstration of their artistic/craft legacy certainly proved the point.

For lunch I had "Osh," which I was told was the primary traditional dish in Tajikistan. It turned out to be nothing more than pilov, no different from the Kyrgyz pilau in any discernable way. There was also Manti, Laghman, and Shashlyk on the menu. It seems that there are a lot of areas separating the Central Asian republics - politics, economics, language - but food is not among them.

Oddly - beverage does seem to be one such division. In Kyrgyz, Coca-Cola and Fanta are the king Western drinks, though most people prefer the barrage of "National" Kyrgyz drinks, a subject I'm overdue to blog about, but after one abortive effort, am still summoning the courage to test out more varieties. In Dushanbe, it's RC Cola (bottled locally) and "Royal Crown Orange," also a local specimen. That Coca-Cola and Pepsi are both absent in Tajik probably says more than GDP figures about the local economy/ international commerce.

We split ways with the interns after a long chat about Tajikistan, America, religion, politics, and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) - a major cultural identity figure in Tajikistan. I also gleaned info about a nature hike organized by a local tourism group for the 12th, and am planning to make it a birthday outing.
Afterwards, 'Afar took me to the Dushanbe Botanical Gardens. Bishkek also has such a place, and I think it's pretty common across the former Soviet areas. But while the Bishkek BG is little different than any of its other public parks, Dushanbe does it up right. Not only is there an enormous blue-tiled entry gate, but several square kilometers of landscaped terrain, manicured paths, and model "traditional tajik homes." They also have a series of large elaborate pagodas, and demonstrations of early (pre-industrial) ovens, water wheels, and even a suction-based, hand-operated oil-well. The crown is the "African Tree," a 50 ft. palm tree imported as a gift from somewhere in Africa (no info on-site, and generally just known as "from Africa"). 'Afar wasn't sure how long it's been in Tajikistan, but he remembers visiting it (in its hydroponically-sealed mega-pavilion) as a small boy.

I was of course reminded of the only Palm tree in Poland.
Perhaps the greatest use for the Botanical Gardens, especially on a Saturday afternoon, was for weddings. Videographers are huge in Dushanbe, and they spend at least an hour back-walking in front of "happy" couples as they pass various BG landmarks. I say "happy," not as any accusation of local martial practices, but because, no matter how happy you are for the first 5 or 10 such shots, after an hour in full wedding dress and 100 degree heat, it takes a very resiliant bride to keep her smile intact.

At the big gates the wedding really gets under way, with a herd of musicians (hand drums, clarinets, and a few enormous Tajik mountain trumpets) at the ready for a small price. The gates swing open, musicians play, and the friends dance in front as the couple makes their way toward whichever one of the half-dozen limos lined up are theirs. As soon as one bride is in her car, the gates close, only to immediately re-open for the next bride - cue musicians, start dancing, etc.

I think we saw 5 wedding parties in 20 minutes. Most were Uzbeks ('Afar says they tend to be wealthier, and thus can afford the musicians, videographer, limos), one was a Tajik. The dress was generally conservative - as is the norm in Dushanbe - but one bride was especially well covered (she couldn't see out of her veil, and was guided tiny steps at a time since her dress practically wrapped to her ankles). Oddly, the next was a Russian, and as short as the bridesmaids dresses were, I'm pretty sure the Bride secured the award for skimpiest ensemble. There was no music or dancing for the Russians, who did nonetheless have a videographer, and otherwise go through the same procedures - just much less jovially.

'Afar and I parted ways for some rest, but met up again later than night - I thought for dinner, but apparently just to go for a walk in the Central Park after dark. I'd been here before - seen the statue of Rudaki; the fountains; the lack of big trees - but at night it really did come alive. LCDs lit up the fountains, there was music, and children (on roller blades) everywhere. I had to confess that, to my knowledge, we didn't have anything like it in New York. I couldn't actually tell if this made 'Afar smile, but I like to assume it did.

It should be noted that the park is immediately in front of the new Presidential Residence, which displaced several hundred Tajik families to acquire the prime real estate. The park itself is still somewhat new, and the statue (formerly the place of Lenin) and lights were even newer. As I commented to 'Afar, now the president can go out on his balcony at night and see all his happy citizens (or subjects, depending on how much you link civil status with civil rights). Anyway - Tajikistan seems to be doing OK from such a specific, artificial vantage point.

Looking back the other direction, at a new grand palace with a gold dome built on old Tajik family homes and with unspecified funds (the entire annual budget for Tajikistan is $50 million, and this house had to cost a good % of that), the vantage was a bit more skew.

Weber (on the lamb)