Last summer, a small international prospector operating in the poorest of former Soviet republics released some sensational news: Tajikistan, it announced, is sitting on enough oil and gas to make everyone rich.
As President Imomali Rahmon gears up for a reelection bid later this year, he’s apparently trying to take care of some unfinished business from Tajikistan’s civil war, which ended 16 years ago. Specifically, Rahmon is striving to neutralize a prominent political rival, former Prime Minister Abdumalik Abdullajanov.
Tajikistan is turning ageism into state policy. Supposedly seeking to “attract young specialists” into government service, the president’s office has instructed officials to lay off elderly government employees –including teachers, doctors at state hospitals, and office functionaries – regardless of their qualifications.
Something strange happened in Tajikistan over a late December weekend. On a Friday evening, the government’s communications agency ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to block 131 websites for “technical” reasons. Then suddenly, a few days later, the ISPs were told, in effect; ‘never mind.’
Longtime residents of Dushanbe say Tajikistan’s capital is changing, and they’re not talking about the destruction of city parks to make space for empty new skyscrapers. The use of the Russian language, once a unifier in multi-ethnic Tajik cities, is rapidly fading.
In a country with no daily newspapers and soft-hitting state media outlets, the Internet is where an increasing number of curious Tajikistanis go for news and information. That’s apparently got officials worried.
This summer, a 32-year-old musician with Uzbek citizenship was visiting her mother in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. For the last decade, the musician has lived in the Tajik capital Dushanbe with her husband, an ethnic Uzbek, and their 10-year-old daughter.
More than 30 artists from across Central Asia and from as far away as France and Turkey gathered on the southern shore of Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Issyk-Kul earlier this month to share some creative juices. Besides painting and sculpture, they produced installations and performances, and undertook joint photography shoots.
Organized by the Bishkek-based NGO B-Art Center, the weeklong “Nomadic Art Camp” culminated in a July 13 exhibition at the National Art Museum in Bishkek and a jam session at the Hyatt Hotel featuring local and foreign musicians (including yours truly, Kide from the Jeans Community).
Shaarbek Amankul, head of B-Art Center, told EurasiaNet.org that he has organized the Nomadic Art Camp annually since 2009. The main idea, Amankul said, is to recognize Central Asia’s cultural heritage as a source of inspiration for contemporary art.
“Bio-cultural Heritage and Diversity” was the theme this year. Participants explored how to fuse traditional Central Asian materials, such as felt and wood, with modern ideas.
For example, Tajik artist Daler Mikhtodzhov combined his interests in the region’s ecology and spirituality in a performance, Stairway to Heaven. In the YouTube video, he appears reading suras – Koranic verses – inside a wooden cage. But the cage is not just a trap: It’s actually a ladder, the rungs wrapped in yesterday’s newspapers. Later, a male performer covered in black oil contemplates escape.
Organizers plan to take the exhibits on a road trip around Kyrgyzstan and distribute a catalogue internationally.
Konstantin Parshin is a freelance writer based in Tajikistan.
A building boom in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe -- one that has given rise to Central Asia’s largest library, tallest flagpole and the soon-to-be most spacious teahouse – is prompting some residents to joke that the city is becoming a showcase for a new-ish architectural style, “dictator chic.”
The most extensive personnel shake-up of President Imomali Rahmon’s almost two decades in power is going on in Tajikistan. The turnover in the top echelons of government indicates that media outlets are playing an effective watchdog role in Tajik society.
