Advice on Visiting Tajikistan

I started to write a long email to my friend on what he should expect when he arrives next Monday, and then decided to share it here for anyone Googling "Travel Tajikistan." Of course there is infinitely more to say, and there are websites with much more, but this is the very short what you need to know upon arrival in Tajikistan:

You are now able to get a 2-week tourist visa on arrival at the airport in Dushanbe, but I had a friend who was lucky enough to arrive in a week when there were "technical malfunctions" and so he had to stay in Istanbul for three days to get a visa there and wait for the next flight. (On the bright side, when you get a visa in Istanbul, you get a sweet tourist map and postcards of Tajikistan). [more visa details written by my friend at the bottom of the page] You don't have to register if you are staying less than 30 days (be grateful - this is an un-fun post-Soviet habit). On the other hand, the U.S. government would advise U.S. citizens to register online with their Smart Traveller Enrollment Program.

Most people from the west fly Turkish Air through Istanbul. The flight goes twice a week, Sunday and Wednesday nights, and arrives in Dushanbe at 3:45 am the next morning. Don't worry - things will be open by the time you get out of the airport at 5 or 6 a.m. 

Mosque in Istaravshan.

Why does it take so long? It is a small airport. Because the mass of people shoving towards passport control is chaotic and suffocating and there are no lines. As a foreigner, you need to grab two forms on the right when you come in. One of these is a long rectangle with the same information on the right and the left. There is a colorful advertisement for one of the phone companies on the back. At passport control they will rip the paper and keep one half and give you the other. You must not lose this paper - they will ask for it when you leave the country. I staple it in my passport. The other piece of paper you need to remember is the baggage-check slip that they gave you when you checked your bag wherever you originated - after you have perhaps waited a long time for the luggage to appear, on your way out of the airport they will collect your luggage tag. 

You will emerge into a swarm of people waiting in the morning sun. If you are lucky a friend will meet you - if not there are plenty of taxi drivers ready to relieve you of your bag. 

You probably want money - I find it is easiest to withdraw from the Bankomat (ATM). You can withdraw somoni everywhere and USD in some places (I use USD only to pay my rent).  There are also many money exchange places on the street. Credit cards are useless.

Finding things like bankomats is easiest if you take some time to learn the Cyrillic alphabet - or at least a few minutes to look it over (Learn in 5 minutes for Russian or this chart for Tajik/Latin/Persian comparison).

If you need to bring a gift for an American, coffee is appreciated (this is another way of saying: prepare to drink Nescafe for the duration of your stay). 

Хуш омадед!

Tajikistan culture visible: курта (kurta - national dress; mine is made from атлас (atlas - national fabric), дастархон (dartarkhan - table cloth/spread), кӯрпача ( kurpаcha - mattresses/beds), general guest-ing

For more:

This guy seems to have very helpful and up-to-date information: http://caravanistan.com/travel/tajikistan/

I know someone working on this website, which is trying to become a more helpful guide to Dushanbe (if you're coming for longer, read this post on everyday Tajik customs: http://menu.tj/en/posts/culture-un-shock/)

More visa info from said friend who just got his visa in Istanbul: 

1-All the Tajikistan government web stuff says that if you are coming in from a nation that has a Embassy or Consular office you need your visa prior to entry. The guy I talked to in Istanbul at the consulate said the same. 

2-You can get 30, 60, or 90 day tourist visas. The 30 day is 50 USD (only USD accepted). Perhaps the 2 week visa is still availabe at the airport. 

3-If you are trying to do this in Istanbul it is hard to find the consulate. The train station/neighborhood it is in is called Florya. But there is no train station working right now  - it looks like it is under renovation. I can put togeather a google map+street view if you want. 

4-Bring your passport and a couple photo copies and a few passport-sized photos of yourself. It also helps to print out and fill out two copys of the visa application available online after some searching.

Debate (Part 2) and a Postcard from Kyrgyzstan

I said before that I cared more about my students in Khujand than the tournament that was to come in Dushanbe. That was before we went to Dushanbe for the First National English Debate Tournament (March 29-31). I still am proud of what we did in Khujand, but being with students from all over the country brought it to a new level. Granted, there were many differing levels of debate experience and ability, but the excitement of a tournament - with four preliminary rounds in which everyone would compete - was motivation to make all of them improve immensely.

I was staying with the main organizer, and was part of the late-night planning and anxiety about making everything run smoothly. I was one of the judges; I (hilariously) gave the orienting/rules presentation to the debaters while the judges were meeting; I ended up giving out the certificates at the end. The whole thing took place at the gorgeous Ismaili Centre, which made everything more graceful. I enjoyed the planning and the executing and the walking around with my students in the city and the talking in the car through the snow on the seven hours back home. 

There are plenty more photos where those came from; and the video that Areebah and I finally had time to make - a version of the presentation we did in Nepal for future English teachers.

Of course, pretty much as soon as we put it together, we realized how little we knew about international debating and learned a whole lot. We made it to the Asia Youth Forum, after a flurry of calls to parents about permissions and passports all during and before and after the tournament in Dushanbe.

I will let IDEA describe it:

The Asia Youth Forum, one of many regional versions of the IDEA Global Youth Forum, is a two-week experience that combines the Karl Popper Debate Championship, educational tracks (including our Mixed Teams Track which brings students from different countries and different levels of experience together in a peer-to-peer learning experience) and tournaments that allow the speakers to put their newly-acquired skills into practice. Find out more at ayf.idebate.org

This year, AYF was at Lake Issykkul in Kyrgyzstan - but we were more in Debate-istan than Kyrgyzstan. They ran a full schedule for the kids, who learned a lot. They had to really work and prepare for their cases - I'm not sure I would have the intellectual stamina to prepare again and again on the same topic in another language. I joined them the second week, for various reasons, and so entered this culture with full awareness of my ignorance and a bit of trepidation. I was glad to see my students, and intrigued by the trainers and coaches. The Tajik students did really well; one of my students from Khujand made it to the Semi-Finals in the Mixed Team Tournament, while the winning team included one student from Khorog and one from Dushanbe.

This was where we were staying. Yes, you should visit Issykkul.

There are too many photos to count: the Russian IDEA Facebook page, all of my students' Facebook posts, the Asia Youth Forum website. They also interviewed people on what digital freedom means to them and in their countries, and my video is one of the ones that has been posted.  More importantly, the talent show hit "Debate Me, Maybe" has reached YouTube - again courtesy of Areebah's editing.

The view from our room.

Because there are few flights in Central Asia, we had to spend two nights in Bishkek before flying back to Tajikistan. It was fun to compare the city to Dushanbe. The same streets! The same buildings! The same monuments! Only it's Manas instead of Somoni. And their flagpole is pitiful. But Bishkek in general is so much bigger, there's so much more Russian, and so many more restaurants. We went to Sierra Cafe and couldn't stop gushing about how much it felt like America (it's more than the coffee - it's the atmosphere with the bookshelves and the baristas and - I'll stop). We had Texas-style BBQ for dinner.  Our guide to all of this was a Bishkek ETA, and we saw a bit of Bishkek with him: his university, the new mall, TSUM for gifts, attempts to visit closed-on-Monday museums.

We returned home on April 23 to TV cameras at the airport - and then a long drive to Khujand, with one student asleep on each shoulder in the middle seat of the taxi. According to their presentation yesterday at the American Corner, they not only made friends that they left with tears, but also learned about the roles in Karl Popper, what clash points are in a debate, more ideas about Digital Freedom than they ever thought to have, the importance of team-building and sportsmanship, and how to communicate with people from other countries when it is difficult. That's a success to me.

One Month (+)

When I arrived in Dushanbe six weeks ago, it was hot. And still hot when I arrived in Khujand, nearly a month ago. Every day I put on my sandals to go out the door, and put on my sunglasses. It is always sunny (Yesterday was the first cloudy day I have seen). It is still in the 80s and hot in the sun in the middle of the day, but autumn has fallen: when I sit by the window in the kitchen in the morning with my Nescafe, I wear a flannel shirt because of the breeze.

I am still figuring out a daily schedule. Until this week, I have had the luxury of waking up slowly without morning appointments. I moved my Tajik lessons to 9 am, so on Tuesday and Thursday I now have to get up. I spent the mornings going to the bazaar for food or planning lessons. I have added classes slowly at the American Corner as I get to know the students and volunteers there. They are all eager to talk to a native English speaker, and want TOEFL lessons, and want to know how to get accepted into programs to go to America, and I spend a lot of time just talking with people.

In the evenings Sarah and I make ourselves dinner. We've been invited out many of the nights: to eat with someone visiting from the Embassy, or (twice) to talk to a group of American tourists, and Friday nights the small Khujand expat circle gathers for pizza and beer.

On two Saturdays I have gone with a group of volunteers from the American Corner to talk to students in the regions about American exchange programs and volunteering. I enjoy getting the chance to hang out with them and try to practice my Tajik, mostly listening hard. The coordinator of the American Corner is a wonderful woman I want to get to know better, and most of the volunteers are male university students, who are also students in my classes.

Sundays have been varied: last week I was sick in bed, today I went shopping at both the bazaar and the 'supermarket'. Tomatoes already cost more than they did when we arrived. Though there are fewer raspberries, there are apples everywhere, and they are delicious. I have made two apple pies since arriving, and at the moment I have an apple cake in the oven cooking for a friend's birthday.  Last night we had a bonfire and grilled beef and mutton while enjoying the full moon, and Sarah and I spent a long time explaining to Europeans why we so badly needed marshmallows.

I am looking forward to enjoying the rest of fall. Everyone is bracing for the winter, and warning us to cherish warmth while we can. I am also looking forward to teaching more, and hopefully learning more Tajik. In addition, I am looking forward to more baking, guitar-playing, and swimming - none of which I expected to be a part of my time here.

Do You Have a Family?

On one of my first days in Dushanbe, a young man asked me, "Oyleh dareed?" [Do you have a family?] I answered, "Of course. My mother and father and two brothers are in America." "Na," he responded, "Shohar dareed?" [No - Do you have a husband?] This is one of the first questions that people ask here. There is only one word for family, but when you are old enough, "family" means "your own family with husband and children because you should be married by now and if not you should marry a nice Tajik boy."  For me, "family" means my relatives in America, and it also means my friends here, who are my Tajik family.

My family in Dushanbe was obvious from landing: myself and the three other ETAs arrived on the same flight and stuck together from then on. Embassy workers often commented on how we were always together. When we went to a talk with students in Qurghonteppa, one of them asked, "How long have you known each other?" We thought about it - we had been together in the country for a week at the time, but we met in Austin, TX, in June for four days - "Three months?" "I thought you had known each other since childhood," the students responded.

ETAs, our embassy contact person and one ELF get silly during a long photo-shoot evening.

Our mother - or Fairy Godmother, depending on the day - was the woman that Areebah and I stayed with for two weeks. Shafoat is a local embassy worker who let us sleep in her daughter's beds, lent me her clothes (and gave me some), cooked for us and taught us to make sambusas. Areebah and I stayed up late talking to her about Tajikistan and America, education and healthcare, college and her daughters: one sixteen and indecisive, one eighteen and now a Freshman at Goucher College in Baltimore. Shafoat was our host, our guide to the city, our friend, our mother, as well as host to the other ETAs and ELFs for frequent dinners, inviting over her other friends from the embassy and generally easing our transition into the country.

We put the "bright" in Fulbright.

Leaving Dushanbe was unexpectedly sad because I felt like I was leaving this family. Now in Khujand, I have a smaller family so far: Sarah, an ELF (English Language Fellow - her ears do not seem to be pointy). She arrived a week after the rest of us, but was just as much a part of our pack in Dushanbe. We were glad to find that we liked each other enough to propose: "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but do you want to live together, maybe?" We both enjoy singing, and have become something of a traveling minstrel show. On our way to Khujand, we stopped at three English classes, and ended up singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane." After the first one, we brought the guitar in (we bought the guitar in Dushanbe). Our apartment is beautiful, and we are glad to have each other to talk about our impressions of our jobs and the places we go and the people we meet.

We took this picture to advertise how ready our home is for visitors - 

particularly for our family spread elsewhere South in the country, but also for others.