06. Tajikistan

WARNING: this contains swearing

Days 10-13

Saturday and Sunday passed in a foggy haze of watermelon, new faces but the same conversations. Where are you from? Where have you been? Where are you going? An overwhelming sense of inertia had descended on me. I could have gone away for the weekend but it was easier to do nothing. I could say I was saving my energy for the coming weeks but I wasn’t. I just didn’t feel like doing anything except waiting for the Turkmen Embassy to open on Monday. The whole trip seemed to have ground to a complete halt.

Genuine 1960’s Soviet memoriabilia in an old second-hand shop.

One day when I was feeling energetic, on one of my many trips down Rudaki, I found a fascinating second-hand shop that sold all sorts of Soviet memorabilia – paintings of Karl Marx and Lenin, old Russian cameras and a huge assortment of Soviet badges and insignia. It was a time capsule of the Soviet Union from the 60’s.

An English guy turned up on a Transalp. He needed to fit his spare rear tyre so I said I would take him to Andre’s workshop on Monday morning. At least it would give me something useful to do. Monday could not come soon enough.

Eventually the calendar ticked over to Monday and, after more of the same – endless watermelon and recurring conversations, I took the English guy to Andre’s to get his tyre problems sorted out late on Monday morning. I left them to it and returned to the Inn to waste some more time until it was time to walk the 1-2km to the Turkmen Embassy. Had the consulate official been able to get my visa back from Ashgabat a day early? Would I be able to leave in a leisurely manner on Tuesday morning? Or would I be left with a mad dash to the Uzbek border on Tuesday afternoon? I was about to find out.

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Days 7-9

How does one fill in a week in Dushanbe? With great difficulty, as I found out.

Dushanbe is not a city that has a glorious history spanning many centuries like its very close neighbour, Samarqand, just over the border in Uzbekistan. Until the Soviets arrived in the 1920’s it was nothing but a dusty little market town. Dushanbe means “Monday” in Tajik, the day the weekly market was held. The Soviets decided to make Dushanbe the capital of the Tajik SSR when they carved up Central Asia into the jigsaw puzzle that it is to this day. Consequently, there are no architectural wonders like the Registan in Samarqand or the Ark in Bukhara.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 Tajikistan, in general, and Dushanbe, in particular, have struggled to find their place in the world. Since independence it has effectively been a one-party state with an all-powerful president/dictator. The evidence of this is everywhere in Dushanbe. Every public building, and there are lots of them, carry huge banners of  President Emomalii Rahmon playing with children, mixing with sports stars or talking to miners. The Post Office even gives away free postcards with his picture on them!

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Days 3 and 4

Thinking that all my problems were solved or, at least under control, I spent the whole weekend catching up on domestic chores. It had been a long time since I handwashed clothes in bucket. But I had all the time I needed. And with free WiFi at the Inn I was even able to catch up with how the Cowboys were going in the NRL. On Saturday morning I started the bike just to make sure everything was still OK.

They like their monuments big in Dushanbe! That’s me at the base of the statue.

Mex and Moni had invited me to join them on a weekend ride with Andre and some friends into the mountains just outside Dushanbe. But after the last few days, all I wanted to do was to sit back and not have to think about anything. Over the weekend I got to know some of the other guests at the Inn. And a very diverse bunch they were. There was an English cyclist, a young English paraglider, three Israeli trekkers, a Kiwi and French couple, a French cyclist from Toulouse and a number of others who came and went over the weekend.

There were several lazy trips down Rudaki to play tourist and take photos or simply to have shashliks and a few Baltikas for lunch beside the fountain. All in all in was a very pleasant weekend. I felt re-energised and ready to take on the next stage of my trip.

Come Monday morning, however, all that equanamity would be nothing but a memory.

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