Dushanbear

From: Samarqand, Uzbekistan

I've spent a couple of days in Dushanbe. It's been a good chance to relax, eat some good food, and stock up on funds and supplies before going to the Fan Mountains.

The city itself is charming, leafy and relaxed, with the prettiest architecture I've seen yet in a Central Asian city.

The people and their clothes are interesting. Tajiks are generally European-looking, making them very distinct from Uzbek and Kyrgyz neighbors. I really find the Tajik way of dressing (at least on the women) quite beautiful. Compared to the past two countries I've seen, Tajikistan is quite conservative and more strictly adherent to Islamic customs. Most of the women here wear colorful ankle-length dresses and matching headscarves, usually tied loosely around the hair. When I walk through the bazaar or along Rudaki (the main drag), it's really something to watch.

Another surprising feature of Tajik appearance: the ubiquitous unibrow (or monobrow to antipodeans). I noticed that many of the women in Dushanbe (even younger ones) have a sort of continuous eyebrow, rather than the shaped/tweezed eyebrows that are popular in the West or the Arab world. The result is a city full of Frida Kahlo lookalikes. Odd, huh? One of my hosts explained it to me: the unibrow is viewed as something distinctive and beautiful inTajikistan. So much so, in fact, that a lot of the younger girls I've seen on buses actually have the gap between their eyebrows drawn in my eyebrow pen to create a sort of illusory monobrow. I guess tweezer sales haven't done so well in Dushanbe.

I must say, haven't done a lot here. But there are the highlights:

- Visiting the Hissar fortress

- Snagging my visa for the glorious nation Turkmenistan (not going to discuss this... I've talked about paperwork enough already)

- Meeting the RC-Kola bear

- Popping by the Museum of Musical Instruments

The remains of the capital's qala, or fortress, are about 40 km west of Dushanbe in a small town called Hissar. The original fortress was built in the 1700's by the local ruler, using the contours of hills to give the building's shape. I guess I was expecting some sort of impressive, largely-intact citadel like you would get in Scotland or something. Not so -- the Soviets blew up the entire castle when they attacked in the 20's. All there is now is a reconstructed front gate. The fortress itself is now used as a collective farm. There were some goats and cows scattered around the place:

I also saw a dozen or so women toiling in the field in long dresses, with nary a man between them. Where were the men? Doing other jobs? You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. I went down the street to a tea house and found twenty men (of all ages) drinking tea in the shade and telling stories. Tajikistan isn't a bad place to work, as long as you're male.

Now, on to RC-Kola bear. Those of you from North America will probably be familiar with the RC (Royal Crown) line of sodas, a cheaper, off-brand alternative to Coke and Pepsi. They also have RC in Tajikistan, but it's actually a knock-off of the original RC. This makes it a double-off-brand manufacturer of soda. OK, that's the context. On to the bear itself: I was walking through the park in front of my hotel when I saw an old, bearded man leading a guy dressed in a brown bear costume on leash. People were laughing and I assumed this was some sort of traditional Tajik slapstick/performance art: old man has boy in bear costume and does a bunch of tricks, that sort of thing. So I checked it out. Turns out the guy had an actual Russian brown bear on a leash! The thing was really well-trained -- its main trick was drinking RC Kola out of the bottle. The old man gave it two to drink and it finished each in a jif. Thirsty ol' bear!

What else? I also popped into the Museum of Musical Instruments, basically a bunch of rooms curiously attached to the district court. The museum is packed with instruments (mostly string, with some percussion) from around Central Asia. I love playing around with weird, different instruments so I had a blast. The curator is a traveling musician and has been all over the world (yes, even to Ottawa -- know you were wondering!) with a small ensemble from the Pamirs. He showed me how to play the rubab (a sort of plucked string instrument), and gave demonstrations on a bunch of violin-esque things whose names escape me, as well as some Turkish and Iranian flutes.