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.

Баҳор омад. Spring comes.

This past week was Tajikistan's most important national holiday, Navruz. It literally means "new day" but is the Persian New Year and marks the spring equinox. When I wrote this to my Grandmother, she replied,

The people over there certainly have the right idea – new year beginning in the spring.  How sensible.  

I have to agree.

It means almost a week off school for concerts and parties. Everyone wears national dress. There is much dancing. There is much poetry, much of which involves the phrase баҳор омад (bahor omad, spring comes).

Here, people are eager to say that it is an International holiday, which someone declared a few years ago, since today people celebrate Navruz in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, parts of China and probably elsewhere I am forgetting. Sarah and I were interviewed to discover our thoughts on Navruz as foreigners, but we didn't see the TV special when it aired. Several of our students and neighbors did, though, and some have approached me since to excitedly, "You speak Tajik!"

At the library, the celebration on the 20th included: a competition of who has the most beautiful table of food (scores could be augmented by poetry recitation), poetry recitation, dancing, a holiday tableau, the arrival of girl in white as "spring", who showed off the haft seen and haft sheen, a poetry contest, a humorous skit, displays of national dress, and speeches. I was encouraged to stand up and congratulate everyone on Navruz in Farsi and English, and later a representative from the Iranian embassy's ministry of culture presented me with a gift. It ended with everyone dancing as the women cleaned and put everything away.

Navruz (21st) in Khujand seemed to be an excuse for kids to run off and play with their friends. Two of the volunteers from the American Corner showed me around the crowded park, where people were selling shashlik every three yards. We went on the Ferris wheel, on a boat ride, and talked as we walked past everyone in their finest clothes.

Sarah and I missed the official Khujand celebration on the 22nd, because we were guest-ing in different parts of Sughd for the rest of the weekend. On the 21st we went to Mangit village in Ghonchi, where one of Sarah's students lives. He took us immediately taken to the village party and we danced. I chose the 11-year-old girls as my partners instead of the teenage boys. 

 

We stayed two nights, and went to many other family members' houses to be guests, which means introducing ourselves and drinking tea and eating food. Both nights included dance parties with all of the neighbor kids outside of the house. Sarah and I apologize for being poor representatives of our country when they put on a J-Lo song and told us to "dance American".

 

We also visited some women making сумалак (sumalak), the traditional Navruz dish. I was only told the story of sumalak the next day, but it is beautiful and goes something like this: Once, long ago, a widow had nothing to feed her children. The children cried to their mother that they were hungry, but she had nothing to give them. One night, the mother threw seven stones into a pot with wheat and some flour and fell asleep with despair. While she slept, thirty angels (see malak) came and stirred the pot. When she woke up in the morning, the woman tried the dish and found that it was delicious.

  

Now people make sumalak in the spring, when the shoots of wheat are young. It must be cooked from 12-24 hours, and women stay up all night, adding wood to the fire and water to the cauldron as they stir and sing to keep themselves awake. If you make a wish while stirring sumalak, it will come true. Sarah and I did not stay so long, but we visited for a little while.

Later that night, I got my hair braided in the traditional style: many little braids finished by cotton tassels at the end of each braid. It took less than two hours, and it is usual for everyone to ask how many braids you have. I ended up with 24 - traditionally one should have 40 braids.

The next day I went to Shahristan. The first night, instead of staying with an English teacher we know, I ended up being the excuse for five 16-year-old girls to have a sleepover. They giggled and talked all night and in the morning we all beautified ourselves with усма (usma). Now, to most Westerners, this is not beautiful. I have plucked my eyebrows at least since I was thirteen. But with usma, you draw your eyebrows thicker, darker, longer, and they are supposed to meet in the middle. It is a green plant that they make into a juice. You paint it on three times, letting it dry some between each application, and then you wash it off - gently! the girls told me, alarmed as I splashed my face.

There is also a story behind usma, which again I learned only after the fact: people believe that on judgment day, all of your body parts will be forced to tell their sins from your life. Your hands, for example, will say that you stole, and your eyes will say that you looked on something covetously. But if you put usma on your eyebrows, they will be so grateful for your care of them that they will lie for you, saying that they are above all and can see everything and that you did good deeds. In conservative villages where fathers will not allow their daughters cosmetics, usma is still encouraged (and some girls sneakily put it on their eyelids as well to simulate the makeup they're not allowed to wear).

My makeover was made complete with либоси мелли (lebosi melli), which literally translates as "national dress." When I mentioned that Sarah had an adras dress (made of this particular fabric and pattern) and I did not, they secretly went to the bazaar, bought some fabric, and brought one student's sister over to measure me "for no reason." In the morning, she arrived with the dress she had worked on all night and took no money for. It might be the most thoughtful gift I have ever received.

This was all for the Navruz celebration that the students had prepared in Shahristan, which involved everyone in national dress, poetry, songs, a skit, and more dancing. Sarah and I were forced to have a dance competition. We walked, played a game, and the reward when I won was that I had to dance for all of them.

 

Photo credit to Sarah and her iPhone.

When we stayed with the teacher that night many more people came to see us, but more exciting was that I finally learned how to make osh-e plov, the national dish of Tajikistan. In the morning we helped bake the bread in the tandur (outdoor oven).

Then we came home and still had a day and a half to sleep before the library opened again.  I tried to answer some emails. I showed my colleague how to make chocolate chip cookies. I welcomed spring.