Khorog has been sitting on a high pedestal in my mind since I applied to be a Fulbright ETA back in August 2012.
It was first described to me when I was 15 or 16 years old and traveling through Northern Pakistan as a city nestled between some of the worlds highest mountains, which had beautiful dancing, a 99% Ismaili Muslim population, and a strange customary drink called "sheer-choi" that involved milk tea with butter and salt.
In fact, I knew about Khorog before I knew about Tajikistan. Originally, I thought I would be spending more time in Khorog during this grant than I actually did. As I mentioned in a post back in September, political and personal reasons kept me in Dushanbe. However this past week I finally traveled to the eastern, mountainous, semi-autonomous region of Badakhshon, the capital city of which is Khorog. Given its minority religious background, its unique political and cultural history, the fact that I was traveling with two PhD-experts (one Persian studies and another post-Soviet studies), and finally, given the extremely short time we had to see everything...my mind is exploding with significant things to mention now.
I should start with the route we took. We set out on a misty Monday morning on a road that takes anywhere from 9 to 25 hours to traverse depending on unpredictable road conditions. Windows cracked open, the smell of eucalyptus, dawn, and occasional bursts of burned rubber drifted in and out. We headed east to the first checkpoint outside Kuhistoni Badakshon/GBAO, and turned south to meet the Panj River, which we continued to follow for 8 hours alongside the Afghan border. The river dividing the countries is a mere 100 meters across in some places. The path following the river is part of the famed Silk Road...the one I read about in seminars at Brown, which has been celebrated in pan-Asian festivals galore, which has been appropriated by State Dept as a "21st century strategy" of economic resurgence, that same Silk Road Marco Polo took...
Many naps and two pit stops later we rolled into the Pamir Guest Logde around 10:30 PM. We had been on the road for 15 hours in total.
We checked in, were served an evening tea, and finally nestled into our rooms. The rooms' stone walls glinted with tinfoil rocks and swirls of course, Badakhson-made cement. Our beds were kurpachas (large pillowy cushions used as mattresses across Central Asia) raised on platforms. But it wasn't until morning that we saw the most spectacular bit of the lodge - the view.
And that is pretty much the view from any part of this city.
I got a small town vibe walking around Khorog that I always imagined small-town America would be like. Khorog looked remarkably clean. There are only two major thoroughfares in the city and lots of smaller alleys that cut across. There are a manageable amount of motor-vehicles and pedestrians, cars actually stop at the lights, and folks stopped to greet one another very frequently.
Strolling from the American Corner Khorog to the Aga Khan Lycée (where I met my Asia Youth Forum debaters) I couldn't help but wonder about July 2012 when the capital sent military forces to Khorog in the middle of the night - a startling move that led to gunfights, some riots, and a mass communication closure, which prevented anyone outside of Khorog from contacting those inside and vice versa. (I blogged about my students recounting this story earlier in the year)
What immediately caused this shocking breach of civilian rights? Like many such authoritarian interferences, the exact timeline of unfolding actions, perpetrations, and violence is not clear. Media outlets are still probing into matters more thoroughly. Here's EurasiaNet's synthesis of misinformation and conflicting stories. However the stories I've heard are mostly from 17-year-olds and they feature feelings of panic and distraught mothers. Whether the government was showing their might and staking their claim in illicit narcotics trade or whether the situation was actually a regular military check-in gone awry in the hands of untrained underage soldiers and armed citizens in Khorog - whatever the story, it actually makes little difference. Seeing Khorog in person just makes me earnestly hope that tempers and angry memories wont result in another boiling flashpoint. I feel more like a protective mother in these situations and less of an objective or analytical third party researcher.
After a successful meeting with the debaters at the Lycée, I walked the short distance to Khorog Museum. If there is a museum in an unexpected locale - I am there! My favorite part of zany, rural museums is always their approach to life-like reproductions. Khorog's museum had no shortage of idiosyncratic presentation methods to allude to "real life back in the day." There was a pair of handmade paper maché-looking models wearing traditional Badakhshoni dress, a loom to weave cotton fabrics that took up one-fourth of the traditional tools room. Of course, there was a random, dusty, but stereotypically mandated taxidermy room. I lingered in an atrium with local wildflowers pressed in glass frames, while in the next room, my eyes glazed over rows and rows of uniformed cadres remembered on the walls for fighting Bolsheviks in the 1930s. I can never train my eyes on faces of important or historical personalities in old photos - particularly in military portraits. But, for me, important faces are much easier to spot in charming family photos, in loungewear, out of unoriginal fatigues.
After making one more stop at the American Corners to assist with a discussion, I met my travel buddies for dinner at the only renowned restaurant in Khorog: Delhi Darbar. That's right. This girl went all the way to the Roof of the World, one of the remotest and least known areas on the planet, and had Lamb Vindaloo her second night. But honestly the food across Tajikistan is quite similar. And there was plenty of Osh and Shurbo to be had over the next five days as we set out for the Wakhan Corridor...
It was first described to me when I was 15 or 16 years old and traveling through Northern Pakistan as a city nestled between some of the worlds highest mountains, which had beautiful dancing, a 99% Ismaili Muslim population, and a strange customary drink called "sheer-choi" that involved milk tea with butter and salt.
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| Rain clouds encroaching as we left. |
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| Fill 'er up. |
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| We followed the route marked by the red line from Dushanbe to Khorog. courtesy: caravanistan.com |
Many naps and two pit stops later we rolled into the Pamir Guest Logde around 10:30 PM. We had been on the road for 15 hours in total.
We checked in, were served an evening tea, and finally nestled into our rooms. The rooms' stone walls glinted with tinfoil rocks and swirls of course, Badakhson-made cement. Our beds were kurpachas (large pillowy cushions used as mattresses across Central Asia) raised on platforms. But it wasn't until morning that we saw the most spectacular bit of the lodge - the view.
I got a small town vibe walking around Khorog that I always imagined small-town America would be like. Khorog looked remarkably clean. There are only two major thoroughfares in the city and lots of smaller alleys that cut across. There are a manageable amount of motor-vehicles and pedestrians, cars actually stop at the lights, and folks stopped to greet one another very frequently.
Strolling from the American Corner Khorog to the Aga Khan Lycée (where I met my Asia Youth Forum debaters) I couldn't help but wonder about July 2012 when the capital sent military forces to Khorog in the middle of the night - a startling move that led to gunfights, some riots, and a mass communication closure, which prevented anyone outside of Khorog from contacting those inside and vice versa. (I blogged about my students recounting this story earlier in the year)
What immediately caused this shocking breach of civilian rights? Like many such authoritarian interferences, the exact timeline of unfolding actions, perpetrations, and violence is not clear. Media outlets are still probing into matters more thoroughly. Here's EurasiaNet's synthesis of misinformation and conflicting stories. However the stories I've heard are mostly from 17-year-olds and they feature feelings of panic and distraught mothers. Whether the government was showing their might and staking their claim in illicit narcotics trade or whether the situation was actually a regular military check-in gone awry in the hands of untrained underage soldiers and armed citizens in Khorog - whatever the story, it actually makes little difference. Seeing Khorog in person just makes me earnestly hope that tempers and angry memories wont result in another boiling flashpoint. I feel more like a protective mother in these situations and less of an objective or analytical third party researcher.
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| A staged, pastoral picture of Badakhshoni women in a periodical from the 50s |
After making one more stop at the American Corners to assist with a discussion, I met my travel buddies for dinner at the only renowned restaurant in Khorog: Delhi Darbar. That's right. This girl went all the way to the Roof of the World, one of the remotest and least known areas on the planet, and had Lamb Vindaloo her second night. But honestly the food across Tajikistan is quite similar. And there was plenty of Osh and Shurbo to be had over the next five days as we set out for the Wakhan Corridor...
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