We have been waiting here in Dushanbe for a week for our Uzbek visas, so one day we took a trip out to an ancient city called Hissar about 40 minutes from the city. There is also a thriving agricultural town here today. At Hissar there are ruins of the ancient fortress and a museum established in the 1980's (and hardly improved since!) in one of the old madrasses. We were lucky to find that one of the staff spoke good English and she gave us a tour of the many small former student's rooms within which there was an eclectic and somewhat disorganised array of artfacts from many different centuries. Here are some pictures of Hissar old and new. The city was both an important place of Islamic learning with strong links to Bukhara as well as trading post on the Silk Road. Today it is all about growing fruit and vegetables - and selling them of course!
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