Doing Dushanbe

A lot of people are constantly bemoaning the lack of culture and substance and general activity of Dushanbe.  I hate these people.  If you ever meet someone who tells you "Oh, Dushanbe doesn't really have anything to offer, it's kind of dull" then don't just nod in tacit and disengaged agreement, fight back and tell them that Dushanbe doesn't suck, but rather they suck at visiting it.  Dushanbe is the crown jewel of the Fann alluvial*, and they need to quickly figure out that problem isn't Dushanbe, it's them.  

I spent most of my time in Dushanbe thinking about where in the city I would live.  It has a lovely central boulevard lined with trees and people waiting for marshrutkas.  It seems to me that their public transportation system is woefully lacking.  I wandered up and down the main street quite often looking for good tea houses with free wifi and a decadent ambiance, but to my chagrin nothing had the Orientalist allure of the chaihanas of the Fergana Valley (or the Istarafshan Pass, for that matter) so I contented myself with the "Cafe Sahara" and took advantage of the generous wifi and general warmth and lack of patrons.  It was here I caught up on all the happenings in the world, such as Halloween, and my friend in Budapest who 2 days earlier had posted on my Facebook wall asking about how he will know an apple pie has finished baking.  I hope that worked out for him. 

There's a lot of animosity towards the Soviet Union in lots of places in the world, but to their credit they did bring ballet to the Tajiks.  And the circus, which I'm convinced consists solely of dancing bears that have been drugged into oblivion.  But culture aside they did achieve the dream of rural electrification and Dushanbe has a fairly extensive, if not consistently functioning, trolleybuses.  One such bus suddenly stopped working during one of the many, many brownouts that charmingly douse the country from time to time throughout the day, and naturally we all disembarked and started pushing the bus over the bridge until we hit the power grid again.  Everyone howled with laugher when I pulled out my camera to take a picture, as if I had never pushed a bus through downtown Dushanbe.  I still had to pay for the bus, which to me seems a bit unfair but I guess I can contact their customer service department and ask for a credit on my next ride in the city.  

I also utilized the Couchsurfing network and met up with a bunch of expats who were pretty fun and I ended up going out with them at a later date to the club but that deserves a post unto itself.  There was a rude Iranian man there who was talking about English and had said something about how it's hard to understand all English speakers because we all speak it differently and use different slang and there are different ways of saying the same same thing and I said, "yes, it's a rich tapestry." and he said, "What?" and I repeated myself and he said, "What?" and I said, "…English has lots of words" and he said, "Yes!" and a bunch of English people laughed at the unintended irony of that small exchange.  Look, maybe you just had to be there.  I'm actually pretty funny in the flesh. 

I also ate a couple of Georgian restaurants, because evidently in order to stop those feisty Caucasians from killing each other a village or two was deported to Tajikistan during the Soviet era.  There were also several Ossete restaurants in the city, which totally makes sense when you think about it because Tajik and Ossete are Iranic languages, durr.  I also took advantage of the tea service in the Fahking Hotel and when I was walking up near the Palace grounds and a young Tajik approached me and started talking to me in Russian.  He was quite a nice and educated young man and he was telling me that his parents worked in the government and that he was studying Chinese so that he could go work in China.  If you're looking for tangible evidence of the declining influence of the Anglo-American axis, look no further than Tajikistan.  This kid knew which side of his bread was buttered.  

Anyway, Dushanbe was fantastic.  I really can't piece together all the stories in an engagingly coherent way, so perhaps a photo essay will do the walking for me.  I know that whenever I am unable to find the words to talk about how I feel, simply showing pictures of Dushanbe always seems to capture my current emotional state, wherever I may be.  

*Get it?  Fann alluvial?  Alluvial fan?  Guys, I didn't struggle through first year Physical Geography not to apply this knowledge practically in everyday scenarios.  I am an active member of the knowledge economy, it's my duty to help you readers stand on the shoulders of giants.  Also, if you've ever had the pleasure of going on a road trip with me in BC, then you no doubt have been driven absolutely batshit crazy by the number of times I point out an alluvial fan.  That and the 30-degree angle of repose.  But just imagine all the times I see alluvial fans and decide against pointing them out.