Tajikistan - 2017

This morning’s weather in Penjikent was like weather from heaven – clear blue skies and fresh air with cool, springtime temperatures.  The overnight stay in the guesthouse was lovely, with a great bed, spacious room, clean bathroom facilities, and even some slow, intermittent wifi.  Breakfast this morning was served to us by the owner, his pride in his guesthouse seemingly bursting out of his chest as he wanted to make sure we were well fed.

We had a long drive ahead of us today as well as some sightseeing to undertake in Penjikent, so we left the hotel at the earlier-than-usual time of 8:00am.  Our first stop was the Rudaki Museum, located fairly close to the centre of Penjikent in an attractive Soviet-era white building.  Penjikent is known as the Pompeii of Central Asia because of the sheer volume of the Sogdian era frescoes, and the museum is said to be the best place to view them.  Upon arrival, we donned our elasticised shoe covers as directed by the curator and processed enthusiastically to view the exhibits.

Unfortunately, all the large originals of the frescoes for which Penjikent is famous have been shipped off to the Antiquities Museum in Dushanbe and to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.  Nonetheless, there were some artistically rendered copies, plus a few small and fading original pieces.  Overall the museum was an eclectic mix of exhibits, with the oldest (Bronze Age) exhibits displayed in 1920s-style dimly lit glass cases, but other better-presented exhibits in other rooms.  The Soviet-era display was

interesting, as it featured some original letters to soldiers from Josef Stalin, while the present-day display was an extravagant display of portraits and photographs of the President.

My prize for quirkiness in the museum went to the room of poorly stuffed animals, while my prize for the scariest exhibit was not for the Soviet-era gulags but the model of an ideal, traditionally dressed Tajik bride.

A short drive took us to our second stop for the day, the central market (bazaar) opposite the Olim Dodho Mosque.  This was the third large market we had visited in Tajikistan, and in some ways it was the most lively and colourful.  Like all the markets here, the local people were gracious and welcoming, expressing deep honour and gratitude whenever a camera was pointed in their direction – quite different to West Africa!  We entered through the large, ornamental gateway, walked past a line of women selling round loaves of delicious-looking bread, and then explored the market.  Like other markets, this one was selling everything imaginable, although the most interesting and photogenic areas were selling bread, root crops, carved cradles for babies, honey, and dried fruits and nuts.  In the middle of the market, a circular domed building showed us the site and structure of the market’s origins.

Leaving the market, we drove towards the east, stopping in a rural area just west of the village of Hussar where a winery was located.  Known as the Parandis winery, this rusting factory began in Soviet times, and in its heyday was producing 700 tonnes of wine for distribution throughout the USSR.  Now privatised and clearly starved of investment funding, the factory now produces about 10% of its Soviet-era output, and distributes only within Tajikistan.

After the aggressive (so-called) guard dog had been tied up, we entered the compound and were greeted by a rusting pictorial sign with some indecipherable quotations, backed by an abandoned, decaying factory building and a decrepit truck loaded with old wine bottles for re-use.  We walked past an impressive array of metal vats (apparently almost of which were empty) to the factory building where production was underway.

This was a great factory to visit!  The term ‘labour-intensive’ doesn’t do full justice to the operations.  Dickensian would be an over-statement, but only just.  Immediately inside the door, and again in a back room, teams of women were soaking old wine bottles to remove the labels so the bottles could be re-used.  Elsewhere, another group of women was attaching new labels to bottles that had been cleaned, and also to some new bottles that are used for some varieties of wine.  Bottles that had been filled and labelled were being wrapped in plastic in half-dozen groups, sealing being done with a gas tank and torch (flame-thrower?) of military proportions.

We were offered the opportunity to taste the wine, and the consensus was that their muscat was by far their best drop.  Unlike wine elsewhere, this factory used only natural ingredients, with no chemical additives or genetically modified grapes whatsoever; effectively they were using Soviet 1950s technology and one of the oldest, paleo varieties of grape still grown.  At a price of 15 somoni (US$1.85) per bottle, it was remarkable value for those who made a purchase.  As we departed, we all agreed that that on a trip that had many highlights, this factory visit ranked near the top of the list.

Leaving the winery, we began the long drive back to Dushanbe in earnest.  The drive took us east to Hushekat 2, where we turned south on the main highway.  Although we had travelled these roads earlier in the trip, the changed weather conditions – sometimes better, sometimes worse – combined with viewing the scenery from the opposite direction meant that the experience was still a fresh one.

We stopped at a small roadside café for lunch, sitting outside under the apricot blossoms and enjoying traditional soup and beef shashlik, which

seems to be standard fare at roadside cafés and invariably of good quality.  There were a couple of quick stops to stretch legs, one to admire a huge mosaic of Lenin in excellent condition on the end of a housing block in a mining settlement, and the other within Dushanbe to admire a Massey-Ferguson tractor mounted at the entrance of a tractor factory.

We arrived at the hotel a little after 4:00pm, and we were quickly given the keys to the same rooms we had occupied before heading north several days ago.

This was not the end of our day, however.  Most members of our group were scheduled to fly out of Dushanbe tomorrow morning, some as early as 5:00am (with a 2:30am check-in!).  Therefore, a group farewell dinner was arranged with a departure from the hotel at 7:30pm.

The venue was interesting, being in a large mall that had been built by the government three years ago, but which was largely vacant.  The intention had been to attract stallholders to move from the Green market, but very few had done so, and those who had moved had later moved out. The problem seems to be that the location of the mall was not central like the Green market, and people everyone seemed to prefer the central location even though its facilities were far more basic.

Dinner was a great time of reminiscing about the trip, planning future travel possibilities, and of course thanking our tour leader, Rich, local organiser Jamshed, and our driver and others who assisted with the trip.  The food had a more international direction than any of our other meals, but fortunately still included some wonderful shashlik.  The conversation was lively except when the live music singer was performing, seemingly wanting to show off his huge new powerful amplifier and speaker system.

We all agreed that this had been a sensational trip - well organised and executed, brilliantly led, with a group that mixed extremely well and genuinely enjoyed one another’s company.  We may have seen quite a bit of Tajikistan, but other parts of the country remain high on our ‘must-do’ lists.

Day 9 - Penjikent to Dushanbe

Friday 31 March 2017