Many think the five Central Asia “Stans” are variations of a theme, with similar cultures and histories. However, Tajikistan stands out from the pack. Its language is a dialect of Persian, which is linguistically distinct from the Turkic languages spoken in the other countries. Culturally, Tajiks are closer to Persians and groups living in Northern Afghanistan than to those of Turkish and Mongolian heritage. Unlike the historically nomadic groups in the region, Tajiks are mostly farmers and town dwellers. The landscape is even geologically different with barren, high-altitude, and arid terrains, rather than greener, alpine mountains and vast steppes.
As I travelled through one of the most mountainous countries in the world, I found Tajikistan fascinating. Everywhere were remnants of its history, from sophisticated cities in antiquity, to the military incursion of Alexander the Great, to the conversion to Islam, to the incorporation into a Soviet state and finally to an independent country in 1991. The country receives relatively few tourists and most of them are from neighboring countries and Russia, so thankfully for me, the Western commercial influences were muted. Importantly, the local folks were uniformly friendly and unfailingly helpful.
We went to the capital Dushanbe and the Zeravshan Valley in western Tajikistan over four days, which provided an excellent overview of the country’s rugged landscape and long history. However, we are planning to return as there’s so much more to see and do in other regions!
See my Tajikistan photo gallery of images from around the country.
Why Did We Go to Tajikistan?
My wife Khadija and I had finally gotten visas for Turkmenistan, at that time a difficult process, and while arranging to go there, we realized we could include Tajikistan. We made it to Tajikistan in September 2023 and entered a country neither of us had been to.
Where is Tajikistan?
Tajikistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It lies between China, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. It’s narrowly separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor. The shape of the country resembles a rabbit. It’s about the same area as Arkansas, Greece or Nepal.
How Long to Spend in Tajikistan?
We spent only four days and could only see some of the northwestern part of the country, including Dushanbe. Travel is slow as it’s so mountainous, thus it would take at least two weeks to visit a few regions of the country. In fact, just a comfortable drive from Dushanbe to the Kyrgyzstan border on the incredibly scenic Pamir Highway (M41) takes seven to ten days. If a visitor wanted to hike and travel to all regions, they could easily spend a month there.
When is the Best Time to Visit Tajikistan?
The summer is best for trekking as the mountain passes are open and it’s relatively warm. On the other hand, winter is very cold, many passes are closed and surprisingly there are few winter activities in such a mountainous country. The spring and fall are also good times to visit, but planning is needed on exactly where and when to go.
How to Get Around Tajikistan?
If affordable, the best way is to hire a 4WD with a driver, which allows transportation to virtually anywhere. Another option is taxis, which are reasonably priced in Tajikistan, but they go only to places accessible by main roads. Cheaper is a shared taxi, but their schedules are erratic, they often wait until they have the maximum number of passengers and they only go to easily accessible places. If a visitor doesn’t want to figure out transportation, they can always take a tour but will have no option of changing the itinerary.
We engaged the outstanding guide Humoyun Buhorov (+992 928022930 WhatsApp, [email protected], @humoyun_buhorov on Instagram). He knows the whole country like the back of his hand, can lead long treks and has a great sense of humor.
Here’s a map of attractions for Tajikistan.
What are the Ethnic Groups and Religions of Tajikistan?
Tajikistan is a multi-ethnic country with almost 11 million people, of which Tajiks are about 80% and Uzbeks about 10%. The rest includes Russians, Kyrgyz, Pamiris, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Uyghurs, Tatars, Armenians, Azeris, Georgians and Europeans.
About 95% of the population, to differing degrees, follow Islam, almost all as Sunnis. A small percentage, primarily in the Gorno-Badakhshan region, are Shia of the Ismaili sect whose spiritual leader is the Aga Khan. The government doesn’t want competition from imams in governing and strictly regulates religious practice, including banning hijabs and limiting public religious activities for minors. Outside of mosques, I don’t remember seeing any men having a “Muslim” beard with the upper lip closely or completely shaved.
What Languages Are Spoken in Tajikistan?
Tajik is the official state language of Tajikistan. It is a variety of Persian closely related to Dari (Eastern Persian), written in the Cyrillic script. Russian is widely used to communicate between ethnic groups and with foreign visitors. English-only speakers can easily manage in Dushanbe and when communicating with those in tourism, some younger people and a few in the educated elite.
Having said this, it’s easy to communicate with non-English speaking locals, as we found them to be friendly and curious about us. We were often asked with their body language to take a selfie with us or have tea, as with this doctor in the Panjakent market.
Is Tajikistan Safe?
Tajikistan is a safe country but like everywhere a visitor should use common sense especially in deserted or remote locations. One caveat is to be aware of infrequent and unpredictable border violence near the Afghan border.
Is Tajikistan Expensive?
Tajikistan is refreshingly affordable. It and Kyrgyzstan are the cheapest countries in Central Asia. However, Pamir Highway trips are relatively costly because of the need to rent 4WDs, more expensive gas and special permits.
What to Eat in Tajikistan?
Almost all of our lunches and dinners were lamb or beef, sometimes kabobs, with rice, potatoes and an array of vegetables. Plov, rice with carrots and meat cooked in a big pot and eaten from a shared plate, is the national dish.
We had qurutob for lunch, a common dish in the country. It’s torn flatbread with a sour cheese (qurut) sauce, onions, and vegetables, often eaten by hand from a common tray. Ours was served with salad filled with wonderfully fresh vegetables that we knew and loved.
In the Dushanbe Central Market, I saw these small hills of yogurt, called chaka.
On the road we had squarish samsas (or sambusas) filled with minced meat, onions, and cumin, and baked in a pit oven.
One of the best cafes in Dushanbe is Tartin, excelling in coffee, desserts and ambiance.
Where to Stay in Tajikistan?
We stayed in comfortable-enough hotels, suitable for tourists: Atlas Hotel in Dushanbe, Iskanderkul Guest House and the Penjakent Plaza. There are more luxurious ones in Dushanbe such as the Hilton, Hyatt and Serena. There is also a choice of hostels and inexpensive guesthouses in Dushanbe, Khujand and scattered over the country.
What are Important Events in Tajikistan’s History?
The first people in Tajikistan were Stone Age inhabitants. Later, Bronze Age civilizations emerged and included Sarazm, a 3rd millennium BC farming settlement, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
At the end of the 6th century BC, most of present‑day Tajikistan lay within or on the edge of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. After Alexander the Great conquered the region in the late 4th century BC, it became part of Hellenistic successor states that connected Central Asia to Mediterranean trade and culture.
From about the 1st to 4th centuries AD, the Kushan Empire, which supported the spread of Buddhism, ruled the area. Afterwards, the Sasanian Empire, the last pre-Islamic Persian empire, controlled the region, including the trading city of Punjakent, which is now buried except for a few excavated buildings.
Arabs conquered and spread Islam in the early 8th century but in the next century the Samanid dynasty ruled and provided the foundation of Tajik identity.
Subsequent centuries were under Turkic and Mongol powers: Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan (13th century) and Timurid Empire of Tamerlane (14th – 15th centuries). Afterwards the Tajik areas were divided up among small khanates and emirates.
In the late 19th century, Russia annexed or dominated Tajik areas. At the creation of the USSR, Tajikistan was a Soviet state.
In 1991, Tajikistan became independent after the Soviet collapse.
Dushanbe
Dushanbe is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan with a population over a million.
Dushanbe was the location of a large market that operated on Mondays. In Persian, it literally means, the second day (du) following Saturday (shanbe). From 1929 to 1961, the Soviets renamed it as Stalinabad and combined outlying towns into it. It returned to its original name after de-Stalinization.
Rudaki Park and Dousti Square
Monuments in Dushanbe are centrally concentrated along Rudaki Avenue and in well-maintained squares. The centerpiece of Rudaki Park is, of course, a statue of the man himself. This impressive sculpture has the poet standing under a beautifully decorated mosaic rainbow.
He lived a long life (859 to 941), is revered as the “father of Persian poetry” and is a paramount figure in Tajik culture. Born in modern-day Tajikistan, he was a court poet for the Samanid dynasty (819 to 999), the first indigenous Persian dynasty after the Arab conquest.
Dousti (Friendship) Square is the largest one in the city and has a series of water fountains. Behind me in the distance is the white-marble column with the Parchan emblem which commemorates Tajikistan’s independence. The gold emblem has a crown and seven stars.
Dousti Square also is the location for the massive Monument to Ismail Samani, a statue dedicated to the 10th century founder of the Samanid dynasty.
Formerly in this spot was a statue of Lenin.
I liked the preponderance of monuments and how visually they interacted, such as this statue of Shan Vishtaspa, the first royal patron of Zoroaster, next to the National Museum of Tajikistan.
One that really appealed to me was the peacock.
Unusually, there were few people because traffic was limited by a meeting of the visiting heads of the five Stans and Azerbaijan. We did see some young men in either university uniforms or the typical conservative suits worn in the country.
Outside of the museum, a quartet was playing an alto saxophone, drum and two karnay horns, used in Persian military bands and for ceremonial purposes.
The National Museum has a comprehensive collection of Tajik historical items and is well laid out. For instance, there was a model of a 7th century Buddhist temple.
Buddhism was a dominant religion and cultural force in Central Asia from the 1st to the 11th centuries AD, flourishing along the Silk Road. It blended with Zoroastrianism and Greek art, before declining at the advent of Islam.
Kohi Navruz Tea House
Dushanbe likes big things. It once had the world’s tallest flagpole (now there are three higher) and the largest mosque in Central Asia (now in Astana, Kazakhstan). In this tradition, it claims to have the largest tea house in the world, Kohi Navruz.
It’s actually a palace with twelve unique rooms the size you would find in the Bucharest Parliament. It’s a marvel of national craftsmanship and many of the stones came from Tajikistan. The building can accommodate more than 3,200 people. With the chandeliers, inlays, carved wood, and elaborate tiles, it’s one of the most decorative buildings I’ve seen, in my opinion, approaching the ostentatious level of the Mollabashi House in Isfanhan.
Grande Mosque
The magnificent Dushanbe Grand Mosque (Imam Abu Hanifa Cathedral Mosque) was completed in 2019.
It’s massive, accommodating up to 133,000 worshippers.
Iskanderkul
Iskanderkul (Alexander Lake) is a glacial lake in the Fann Mountains of Tajikistan. It has an elevation of 2,200 m / 7,200 ft and is 130 km / 80 miles from Dushanbe on mostly mountainous roads. It’s named after Alexander the Great who marched into Central Asia with his army. Legend says Alexander’s favorite horse died here by the lake and that his spirit is still in the water.
By the lake was a carving of Alexander, made of a tree trunk and roots and painted in gold.
The rounded peak of Alexander’s Hat is on the other side of the lake from a glassed sitting area.
In the right light, the spectrum of colors in the Fann Mountains is amazing.
Behind our guesthouse was graffiti on a large rock in Cyrillic letters, probably in either Russian, Tajik or Turkmen before they switched to Latin letters. Turkmenistan was the pioneer post-Soviet state in Central Asia in adopting the Latin script in 1993, though Tajikistan didn’t follow suit.
As it’s difficult to get equipment in this area, a farmer has to resort to using donkeys to separate the grain from the chaff by walking three hours in the same circle.
Panjakent
Panjakent lies at the entrance to Zeravshan Valley and is one of Tajikistan’s main tourist attractions. Some visitors in Samarkand come here, as the Uzbek city is only 65 km / 40 mi away.
Archaeological Site
Khadija is standing in front of the ruins of Panjakent, often referred to as the Pompeii of Central Asia.
It was a Sogdian town whose residents spoke a Persian language. The town existed from around 400 BC until it was conquered by the Arabs in 722 AD and abandoned in the next 50 years.
The town was deeply buried when a shepherd accidentally found an artifact when he tried to help a sheep out of a pit. He contacted Soviet authorities which started excavations in 1934. It had been a prosperous town trading with China, India and the Middle East. Excavations found paintings, frescoes and jewelry. There are uncovered parts of a few of the buried buildings.
There’s a small museum at the entrance to the site which is worth visiting.
Rudaki Museum of Regional History
I greatly enjoyed this museum and we spent over an hour studying its collection of items from the Neolithic period to current times. One painting that caught my eye was the Tragedy of Hoit. A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in 1949 triggered massive landslides, burying the town of Hoit (or Khait) and surrounding villages under silt, soil and rock. Estimates of the death toll range from 7,200 to over 28,000, with the Soviet government suppressing details for decades.
Central Market Bazaar
This is a relatively small market with friendly vendors selling meats, fruits, vegetables, spices, packaged items and tools. It’s worth a stroll through to see the many items offered. Both the vendors and the customers were often with their children.
Mausoleum of Muhammad Bashoro
The Mausoleum of Muhammad Bashoro is an 11th century Islamic shrine and former mosque located in the village of Mazori Sharif, outside of Panjakent. It has an ornate 14th century terracotta entrance and intact medieval Central Asian architecture.
It’s still used for prayer and is a local pilgrimage site.
Sarazm Archaeological Site
Sarazm is 15km / 9 miles west of the Panjakent ruins and far older, from around 3500 to 2000 BC. The site is one of the first agricultural societies in Central Asia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In 1976, a resident in a nearby village informed a Soviet archaeologist about a bronze axe that he found six years prior. This led to excavations uncovering the town which was buried for 4,000 years.
We met a group of local oil field workers who were visiting.
Sarazm was an early town, perhaps the first, in Central Asia to trade with other settlements from the Aral Sea to the Indus River.
Final Thoughts
I live in the U.S. and something really old is a building from the 17th century. Of course, this is because Native Americans left a scant trace of their 20,000 years as they lived in harmony with the environment. In contrast, Tajikistan has archaeological findings showing the land had been cultivated and trade was conducted for the last 6,000 years.
However, the local people seem timeless, as they are aware of this long history but live in the present, as these two women strolling into Sarazm.
It seems if we were here 500 years ago, they would have looked pretty much the same and be as happy as they are now. And if we were around 100,000 years ago, the mountains would be more or less the same. So, even though the culture and landscape are always slowly evolving, they have a continuity which solemnly indicates this is Tajikistan, in the past, now and in the future.
Seeing the layers of history was one of the most rewarding aspects of our visit. I hope many others will have a chance to see this special country!
