Tajik Uzbek Border Problems

I have no photos to bring this experience alive as getting a camera out at a border post or with the police around is asking for trouble, but I must try and relay to you some of the border experience we had after leaving Dushanbe to travel to Samarkand in Uzbekistan. My words will only be able to convey some of the tension (and farce) of the experience. Firstly we learnt on Friday evening that the Panjakent border with Uzbekistan had been closed. We had already booked a vehicle for the 6 hour drive over the mountains north of Dushanbe to get to that border crossing, so if we had left and driven there I do not know what we would have done! Our plane tickets were booked and paid for for departure from Tashkent at 3.50am on Tuesday morning so we would have to reach Tshkent by late Monday night. There are no flights between Dushanbe and Tashkent due to the poor Tajik/Uzbek government relations! Anyway the driver was not interested in taking us to the border crossing nearer to Dushanbe as this was only a 45 minute ride, so our landlord organised for a relative who was working at that border crossing to pick us up at 7.00am on Saturday to take us to the border. We were also to ask for another relative who worked there who would ensure our smooth passage. All seemed well and we had waited 5 days for our Uzbek visas in Dushanbe and had finally got them at 5.00pm on the Friday afternoon, so Uzbekistan and Samarkand here we come ..... or so we thought. None of us had noticed that our Tajikistan visas expired on 3rd November and this was now 6th - we were not allowed to leave the country and had broken the law! This meant a wait of about 2 hours at the border for the boss to sweep up in a large black car with blackened windows and take us off to his office with all our bags. The police would "help" us and try and get the legal process finished as quickly as possible. It normally takes about 3 or 4 days we were told and the fine can run into thousands of pounds. We couldn't tell if they were all in a bribary ring and spinning a yarn about the court that we had to attend or whether they were following proper Tajik legal process. Anyway we were told that a fine of $350 each was the absolute minimum and that if we paid them then they would try and rush through the paperwork, contact the district judge, try and keep the court open (it was Constitution Day and a public holiday) and get us away later that day. Well the form filling took about two hours, trying to find cash from three ATM's in the street was futile as they were all empty, so we offered to pay in a mixture of dollars, pounds and euros. This was acceptable so we dashed back to the police offices for more form filling, including having to sign personal statements (written in Tajik so we do not really know what they said) explaining why we had overstayed our welcome in Tajikistan. I have forgotten to explain that one of the policemen had a little English and he constantly assured us that he liked tourists, wanted to help us as far as he could and then..... wait for it .... wanted us to help him come to England to study and improve his English! Then suddenly the mood seemed to change as the Chief started smiling and reported that he had persuaded the judge to keep the court open just for us so that we could go there with the papers have the hearing and still get away. So this news was then accompanied by an invitation to join them for lunch once the process had been finished! Well after hand writing everything four times, various photocopying exercises and verification of all the papers by the chief, we were marched off through the local park to the court house. We were led into a rather scruffy back room where a large overweight lady (the judge) sat and suggested that we all sat at the table opposite her. The various police officers were allowed to stay and a clerk copied things down behind her. One by one we had to stand give our names, our addresses and explain why we were three days over our visa date. It was difficult to know whether to smile, laugh or be very deferential. The judge explained (through the one policeman who had a little English) that the Tajikistan law meant that we had to pay a fine ... we started to fear that this was more money, but it transpired that this was the $350 each we had already parted with. So we were duly dealt with sent outside to the street to wait a further 45 minutes or so whilst the paperwork was finished and then the police chief emerged with our passports and new paperwork and announcad that we would be able to leave the country! By this time 4.00pm was approaching, but still we had to go and have a lunch with them before being driven back to the border and finally getting out and across into Uzbekistan as the light faded at about 5.30pm (we had first arrived at the border at 8.00am!). This experience is the thing of late night stories suitable for telling with copius supplies of whisky. When we finally reached Samarkand at 12.45am we had to have a few to calm our nerves. The driver we hired from the border to drive us to Samarkand was a maniac and had to be told to slow down on a number of occassions. Enough of this... let's get back to some photos of wonderful Samarkand in the next post.

Images of Dushanbe

Here are some images to give you an idea of the centre of Dushanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan. They range the President's Palace, the central park, street scenes and the trolley buses. We still await our Uzbek visas but hope to get away on Saturday for the 8 hour journey to the border near Panjikent and then on to Samarkand.

Hissar, an ancient city near Dushanbe

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!

Dushanbe

Dushanbe, a city of almost three quarters of a million people, is the capital of Tajikistan. We have been able (forced?) to stay here for a full five days waiting for our visas to be issued by the Uzbekistan Embassy. The relations between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are not good and the speed of processing visa applications illustrates the priority that the Uzbeks give to letting the Tajiks visit their country. In fact the Tajiks still claim that large parts of Uzbekistan, including Samarkand and Bukhara, are historically part of their territory. It was Stalin who drew up the borders of these states, often leaving ethnic groups divided by new national boundaries. Dushanbe was once named Stalinbad.
It is quite a contrast to come to this city after the relatively remote and mountainous country of the majority of Tajikistan. It has something of the feel of a European capital with wide avenues and large municipal buildings, but there is also an air of East Europe about the place, with broken pavements, old trolley buses and policemen stopping cars everywhere to check papers and extract fines or bribes from the drivers.
The National Museum of Antiquities houses a large reclining Buddha as well as a range of impressive archaeological finds stretching back centuries. The park in front of the President’s palace is resplendent with fountains and artworks. Many of the women wear colourful traditional long dresses and in the park we met some young aspiring models wearing modern versions of these dresses.
There are a range of restaurants and fast food cafes serving different foods reflecting the many national and ethnic influences here. We had our best wine and meal of the trip yesterday in a Ukrainian restaurant, although the wine was a Moldovan Chardonnay.
Apart from the museums and parks the other attraction here is a botanic garden which some of us are about to visit. But really this city is not geared up to tourism in any significant way. Today we are having our first cloud and rain since leaving Xi’an in China and we hope to leave tomorrow for Panjikent and then over the border to Samarkand.

16 Hour Drive to Dushanbe

After trying to catch what could have been one of the most exhilarting flights in the world from Khorug to Dushanbe - the planes do not fly if there is any sign of cloud on the route - we arranged for a Landcruiser journey in one bumpy day. The 16 hour journey took us along the Afghanistan border for miles, following a steep valley and river, with troops patrolling at regular intervals. We could see Afghan villages and people, horses and sheep being driven along a path that at times clung to the rock faces. Our route then turned northwards to cross an area of very unstable geology where the road was washed out in a number of places, climbed a mountain range, went through a 2.5 kms tunnel and emerged again onto unsurfaced roads. This was the longest road journey I have ever taken in one day and very tiring, but our driver was good and the total cost of $500 seemed worth it for the relatively comfortable 10 year old Toyota LandCruiser for the 4 of us and our luggage.

The journey really brought it home to us how isolated Khorug and the GBAO area in the east of Tajikistan is. If tourism is to develop further here I suspect that the old airport at Murghab will have to open again (there used to be flights from Dushanbe and Osh in the old Soviet days). Dushanbe is the capital of Tajikistan and where most of the investment seems to have been made. More to follow, but I must mention that we were stopped 14 times for police and army checks on the journey, most as we approached the capital and this ended by us having to go to a police station for a farsical registration process (which we subsequently learnt was not required). Dushanbe is awash with police stopping a fining people! Our driver passed over the necessary bribes as we went along.

It was difficult to take pictures on the journey but here are a few.

KHORUG, a valley town on the Afghanistan border

We drove from Murghab along the sensational Pamir Highway to Khorug, a journey of about 6 hours, if I remember correctly. The road surface is variable but the rough patches slow you down for more time to appreciate the scenery. Lunch was taken at a small village of Alichur - a meat and vegetable soup with bread.

Khorug seems like a metropolis after the high land of the Pamir mountains. Set in a valley bottom on the Afghanistan border it has a pleasant climate and the autumn colours were lovely. The town has a University which is being developed further with funding from the Agha Khan Foundation, there is a museum and shops and some of the toilets even have seats!

We visited the second highest botanic garden in the world and saw the huge new president's conference centre, recently built to celebrate the peace after the civil war. We were told that it was in some ways a demonstration from the president that the AK Foundation doesn't fund everything here!

Believe it or not I met someone in a restuarant that I knew from the UK and he handed over his apartment in Dushanbe for us to use, but more of that later.

Murghab - a tough place for anyone to live

Here are some images of Murghab in Tajikistan which must be amongst the toughest places to live in the world and is over 3,500 metres above sea level. The temperatures plummet to minus 40C in winter and can reach plus 35C or more in summer. Here are some pictures taken in the morning before we left, after our one night in a pleasant simple homestay. Electricity is a problem in this town and often goes off - we were told that only half the settlement could have power at any one time. The smoke you can see in some of the photos comes from the simple coal stoves that are used to heat the houses - and this is only late October!

Murghab is on the Pamir Highway between Osh and Khorug and the scenery around is stupendous.