Whither Tajikistan?

This was written on Sunday but I thought it better not to post it till I had left the country.

Yesterday visited a home for children with disabilities. This is a new institution replacing the one which burnt down at the beginning of the year, killing 13 children. This caused an outcry not least because the fire brigade took an hour to arrive at a location in the centre of the capital. But then, it was a very fine and expensive location, next to the World Bank and Unicef (with all their guards), and rumours existed about the value of the land as a building site.

The new home, on the site of a home that existed many years ago, was put together in next to no time, and in September the children moved in. The place certainly looks very nice and the children have some more space. I know that the regime has improved in that the children now have some teachers and materials for arts and so on, but some things are still questionable - do the most seriously disabled children really have to have their 'potties' in their play room when the toilet is next door? (Also the potties are made for very small bottoms). There is a serious lack of staff, partly also because this new centre is out of town, up a hill. But training is going on through UNICEF, the Turks are funding a sports and treatment centre so it is hoped that things will continually improve.

Wandering through the town in the afternoon I spotted some changes:

• there are many new fanciful street lights (in a country where there is an electricity shortage);
  
  
• in one street all the general shops have become computer shops;
  
  
• my favourite DVD shop, which was suddenly closed by the authorities in May is now open bigger and better (and with very nice and helpful staff);
• the most dreadful Chinese restaurant near the opera, a right soviet restaurant palace, has finally closed and I hope someone else is taking it over;
  
  
• there is a lovely supermarket near the opera with better products that the President's daughter's supermarket nearby.... at a price...
• there are now five or six mobile phone networks as opposed to the two that existed two years ago
• the cars are becoming more European rather than Russian
  
  

All this of course is typical ex-pat stuff. I have not been around the markets to have a look at goods and prices there. Of course people are begging in the streets (though less visibly than in Georgia - but maybe here there are fewer rich people to beg from).

What has not changed?

• bribery and corruption. On the way from the airport, about 5 miles, we were stopped twice by the police. Here no driver crosses a red traffic light because immediately behind it there will be a policeman with his hand open. (and in Georgia they do because the better-paid, and less prone to bribes, policemen are fewer in number... weird or what?). I have heard other stories of bribery and corruption that make your hair stand on end. This is also the only country where I have had to pay bribes - vastly against my principles, but when a bribe is needed to allow me to go home (because the visas were not correct) I also have no compunction.
• people complain about living conditions, but still the president was re-elected; partly because the memory of the civil war and the fear of another one remains in people's minds.

What does the future hold? In a country where a million men work in Russia, in terrible conditions and jobs, having had to bribe their way to get air tickets, living illegally, often falling victim to mysterious fires and other accidents; where the birth rate is the highest in the former Soviet Union, where there is almost no social protection (hence the birth rate). I don't know.

The country has considerable charm in terms of landscape, mountaineering (provided the KGB does not follow you, as it did one walking group in May), people are very hospitable but it has very little tourist infrastructure - if you are prepared to rough it, you will be fine. Just don't drink the municipal water!

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Scenes from Tajikistan

My lovely lagman. You cannot see the thick homemade noodles underneath all the herbs, meat and potatoes.












The ceiling of the teahouse 'Rohat' in Dushanbe. It is open to all weathers (not much rain) summer and winter, though there are some indoor rooms, too. Some hardy souls, including myself, eat outdoors at any time of year.










The housing for the average urban Tajik household. Usually fairly decrepit and greatly in need of repair. In the villages families live in large compounds surrounded by a high wall.

National shortage of Lagman (or going back to the Middle Ages)

It is freezing (literally) in Dushanbe at night, though during the day, due to the glorious sunshine, the temperature rises to about 10 degrees. The flat is particularly cold - there is one electric heater which is not bad; need to bring it closer to me, and at night I need to trundle it into the bedroom. As for the (internal) bathroom and toilet - pure brass-monkey stuff. I was contemplating asking for another heater for the rest of the flat, but when the electricity failed while I boiled a kettle and heated, I decided not to bother.
The kitchen has a joint gas/electric cooker the use of which will become clearer shortly. Only one sort of a pot...and tonight I found the knives; I thought I only had spoons to eat with.
At lunchtime I fancied some lagman - a very filling soup of noodles, beef and some vegetables, definitely with a Chinese influence. The first restaurant I went to did not have any; the canteen I usually go to was closed/bricked up - the former finance ministry building now seems to belong to a private company - and the other two did not have any either. So I had a greasy, albeit tasty, bun sold outside a shop.
However, my little complaint fades into insignificance when you consider that currently in Tajikistan, outside Dushanbe, electricity exists for only 8 hours a day. Our project driver has electricity for two hours a day, as do the outlying districts of Dushanbe. That would be bad enough, but also there has been no gas since, roughly, the presidential election (he was reelected for 7 years). Next week the electricity in Dushanbe will be turned off for two days because some reservoir is full and needs to be drained. The people living in apartments fare worst in this because they have no other way of cooking or heating. As someone said - this is like going back to the middle ages. A foreigner had been heard to comment about the number of good cars on the roads - at the same time. Compared to this, Georgia is doing well.

These wee photies are of some schoolkids in Dushanbe (will try to upload them on a dial-up connection). I had spotted the girls playing 'twist'; that game we used to play at school, involving some elastic stretched out between two people and a person in the middle having to do a complicated routing without stepping on the elastic. When I approached the girls they immediately went into a pose. The boys wanted in on the act, and I had to do them separately - as soon as I had the camera up to my eye a sea of hands shot up, blocking out their faces....And one wee boy, just when I had got the girls to start their game again, ran right into the picture. Men, eh? Note the natty suits worn by some of the boys; this is quite common here (though these children attend a private school).

Of course, in the UK I would be arrested immediately for taking pictures of children in a school playground.

The Dushanbe welcome

Getting to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, is always a bit of a pain. First there is the flight from Moscow, a pure cattle truck affair on ageing Tupolevs 154 (they do feel very stable, it should be said, but they do not look so great - though yesterday's one had been painted and had the seats recovered). People, mainly men working in Russia, cram in with huge handluggage and it is all a bit crowded. Food is good, though, in a homely sort of way.
The passport control used to be fairly easy when everything was done manually. Now things have to be typed into computers, and the officials find that very hard (though they got better in the last 6 months). When they have to type in every scrap of info from your visa, it can be painful to watch.
And then there is the wait for the luggage. In a chilly hall one waits and waits and waits, for the truck to come from the plane. People tend to bring back Expensive Stuff like TVs, computer monitors, DVD players and all these things should be handled carefully - though it does not sound like it as they are dropped on the conveyor belt. I wonder if yesterday there was only one man on duty, loading the truck, driving it to the baggage area, unloading it, and then going back for the rest of the baggage. It took forever.
Finally into 'my' flat at 2.30 am.