mai 2011

We are crossing fingers. The Tajik visa should be obtained at 16H00 and then we would be off by road for about 3 hours to Oybek the little village on the border. We’ll cross on foot to the Tajik side and catch another marshrutka for another 2 hours before reaching Khojand where we intend to sleep.

We are waiting at a Kontinent food court, the same French Continent. Loud music on large tv screens with advertisement in French and French clip music. Wifi is free and loads of youngsters spend time here during the present school holidays. We could be anywhere in the world except for the Cyrillic ads and menu.

Talking about food. It is amazing as populations take on the conquerors cuisine. I would guess that the present Central Asian food came from the Mongols which means that the name varies from place to place but are only different versions (adapted locally) of the same original recipe. Typical examples are Plov, pilov, pilav, pilaf, pilau, pilao, polo, plo. It even came down to Mauritius. It was renamed and spiced up in India who got it from the Moghuls. It is probably not a coincidence that Indian Rajasthan near the Jaisalmer desert sounds similar to the Samarkand Registan (Sandy place in Tajik). One is not to forget that Babur who came to India was one of Tamerlane grandson. Another example is Kebab and shashlik which runs from Xinjiang, China, to India and Turkey. Same for Samsa, Somsa, Samoosa(India), Sambusa (Tajikistan) Sambucek (Lebanon) , the triangular pastry with various fillings, vegetable or meat.

Dumplings originally from China, now: Pilmieni, Pierogi (Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia), manti (Turkey,Central Asia), wantan/wonton,Jiaozi, Kiao, baozi,(China) Khinkhali (Georgia), Dusbere (Azerbaijan) or even ravioli (Italy) in soup. We are eating them every day in their different versions, here with mutton and beef going to pork in China or Georgia. We prefer not to spend too much time asking of what the filling is made of.  All of this shows a very early form of globalisation long before the Macdo.

Easy road with 3 other Uzbeks in the car laughing out loud all the way to Oybek. They stopped to offer us a bowl of ayran each. Like most Uzbek, they could not understand why I have only one son and child. They were proud to mention that they have 4 or 5 children each. We walked easily through both the passport and customs control on the two Uzbek and Tajik sides. Once on the Tajik side we managed to negotiate the taxi fare in the Uzbek som left. The land looked desolate, abandoned with no one on the road. Good quality roads compared to the rest of Uzbekistan.

Khojand, Tajikistan

No hotel booked, we walked in Hotel Vadath and were proposed a huge suite with 2 bedrooms.

Khojand is a city the size of Port Louis in terms of population, planned soviet style with a large avenue lined with trees leading to the theatre, main city feature. Next to it is the ancient X^th century fortress walls, built by Alexander the Great, sacked by Genghis Khan as usual and rebuilt awkwardly in 1997.

We were surprised to receive the late visit of an architect of Buston (village next door) who had already been informed by the President of the Tajikistan Union of Architects that we were in town. He drove 200 km to meet us and we could not refuse to have some chay with him. Unfortunately communication was minimal, language being a major problem.

The drive was much smoother than expected with the road repaired. Six hours drive except for one hour to cross a pass at 3 300m altitude. Two black spots with the driver surfing on the edge of the unstabilised road with the canyon 500 m below and the other black spot is the 15 minute dark and wet tunnel. We thought it would never end. Down in the canyons laid car skeletons.

We arrived in Dushanbe (which means Monday in Tajik). Quiet city with a lot of the young people deserting the country after the fall of the USSR block. The town seems more orthodox than all the cities we have seen so far. It is true that we are now very near Afghanistan. Tajik people form another ethnic group closer to the Iranians, Afghans and speak different versions of Farsi (Persian language). We have been welcomed personally by Bahrom Yusupov and his son. Heavy programme tomorrow where I will meet the Mayor, the architects of the city and the architecture students after a thorough visit of the city.