I'll Have What She Had...?

It's already been a while since I went and got my first haircut in Dushanbe, but I took a second look at the business card that was handed to me when I got up out of the styling chair, and I decided there was probably a story there.

I guess I've been up to my usual hair thing here (I started to write "my usual former Soviet Union hair thing," but I guess I tend to do this in the US, too): I waited months and months to get it cut, putting it off, first because it didn't really need to be cut, I mean it wasn't an emergency or anything, and besides I didn't know where to go... Then we entered into emergency territory, or at least terrible-split-ends-and-tangling territory, but I still didn't really budge. Then I went to the US in November (mind you, my hair was previously cut I think at some point in early spring in Vladivostok?) and still didn't cut it.

I can hear you questioning my judgment on that one, just like Dan was a little surprised that I didn't get a cut in the States. You see, I just couldn't justify spending the money in the US, since I know that a haircut in Tajikistan, probably contrary to popular belief, will be just as good and yet much cheaper. I'm sure this is even true if you go to a fancy downtown salon, such as they exist here in Dushanbe (and I've heard they do exist -- one of Dan's female colleagues went recently for a "facial" at one such salon and I almost started laughing in spite of myself at the incongruity of it all), although your price break off of Western rates is going to be smaller at a place like that.

So I did my usual thing: I let myself get to the point of desperation and then went to the closest place I ran across where it didn't look like the stylist would totally butcher my hair. This time, random selection led me to "Anisabonu," a place identified by a sandwich-board perched outside one of the slightly rundown apartment buildings on the main boulevard in town, Rudaki (often touted as "the very first multistoried [meaning, more than about 3 floors] apartment buildings in Dushanbe!").

I went in the apartment building entrance (ratty as any in this part of the former socialist world), and only had to poke my head around a couple of seconds before it became clear that my "salon" (using the word loosely) was located in what must have been a converted apartment in the rear of the first, slightly elevated, floor of the building.

I know, it already sounds like I'm breaking my rule, but this is the thing with the former Soviet Union -- this kind of place actually is not as bad as it sounds. My theory of explanation goes like this: women in all areas of the FSU care so much more than average American women about what they look like and about formal beauty techniques and products than most of us do that hair stylists actually have to know what they are doing here, and are usually really well trained. Thus, even what looks like a ratty little salon is actually going to be a fine place to get your hair cut on a whim. And for cheap. So far this theory hasn't let me down (although if you extrapolate from my most recent wait to cut my hair, you will infer correctly that the sample size in my extended experiment is inherently abbreviated), not even on this most recent outing.

The thing that was funny about this was that the friendly stylist enthusiastically gave me her card, and since I liked the cut and her nice yet not-too-talkative demeanor I really only slightly less enthusiastically took it. I then of course proceeded to stuff it into my wallet, and only recently did I take a better look at it. Lest you get the wrong idea, my stylist looked nothing like the young lady pictured here, and neither did any of the rest of the clientele. And I'm not quite sure what Zalina is trying to communicate to her customer base with this card. Looking at it myself I think will actually prove a disincentive to return to her, as my memory of the unremarkable interior of the salon fades and all I have to jog my memory is this:

What's That Noise?

It's the sound of the "Slow Boat to Dushanbe" finally coming into port!

Our stuff arrived all in one surprising 24 hour period, both the many, many boxes of household effects from Vladivostok, and the many, many boxes of consumables sent from southern California. (And the car is apparently in town, still in process, but there is some hope of a workaround on the tinted windows law. [Hey, it's still Central Asia -- if it were all airtight bureaucracy and no workarounds, wouldn't it just be Germany?])

What's that other noise now, you ask?

The sound of Dan praising the heavens that only a small fraction of the wine and beer burst or forced their bottle tops, despite the -30C temperatures reported by the truck driver who delivered the goods through much of Eurasia to us. And now what you're probably hearing is Dan popping open a bottle to enjoy while he happily sets to work organizing all of that beer and the other food items down in our basement.

Lots of unpacking and organizing going on inna Biiiig Dushanbe today!

Feeling Trashy

I spent my Friday afternoon two weeks ago whipping up an impromptu batch of oatmeal cookies (they are my staple, since I know I can make them with the ingredients on hand, the kitchen tools and pans I have at my disposal, and they are pretty quick and a tested recipe).

Why, you ask? Because I needed a peace offering, or at least a good faith kind of gesture, for when I went to ring the bell at my neighbor's courtyard next door.

We have been a little slow to understand the local customs surrounding neatness and cleaning the public area around your house and gates. The main way this issue has made itself relevant to us is in the thin sliver of land running alongside and just outside our courtyard wall, located around the corner from our entry gate. People decided that this was a good place to dump their trash -- plastic bottles, discarded half-eaten fruit, even full plastic bags of trash (and one of dirty diapers) that were clearly headed for a more formal garbage tip but we can only assume someone got lazy on the way and relieved himself of the burden at the first chance he got.

My hazy memory from when we first moved in (everything was new, so it's hard to recall what that space looked like then) is that this was not the cleanest area even then. And that's believable, since our rented home had not been occupied for at least several weeks if not a few months, after the Embassy acquired it and while they were bringing it as far up to code as it can reasonably get in Dushanbe, and until we moved in.

Another factor here, I think, (although I feel a little sheepish expressing it) is that I think my perception of what was clean and neat has changed as I've gotten used to my surroundings. I haven't taken or posted all that many photos of our neighborhood, but the couple we have on Flickr may give a hint of a sense of what the immediate environment looks like.

I think you can see how the streets are pretty uneven and in places unpaved, the household walls are sort of patchy and not all evenly painted, and there is grass or moss growing in the cracks, and random rocks lying around. But you'll also notice that there's hardly any real trash lying around (gladly, much different from our surroundings in Vladivostok...). I think what I'm saying is, it took me a few weeks or maybe even closer to a couple of months to start to perceive the difference between "neat, if shabby" and "straight-up trashy." That, and I do think that as we neared the New Year's holiday, for whatever reason (possibly simply the tipping point was reached, and it just started to strike passers-by with garbage to toss as all that much more tempting, and struck them that way all that much more frequently), the garbage really started to accumulate.

At this point we started noticing it more and more -- first remarking to ourselves about what was happening, and then finally feeling the lightbulb come on about the fact that there wasn't any city sanitation that was going to finally clear this junk, but it was probably on us.

I took a brief walk with Anya in between Christmas and New Year's, and while I was waiting for her to finish a little tantrum related to the fact that she was being made to walk a few blocks instead of being carried, I was watching out of the corner of my eye a woman and a boy of probably about 10, who were sweeping and cleaning out in front of their compound's metal gates. They were mainly having to sweep dead leaves, but they were also of course picking up a few small pieces of trash that had found their way there, too. I also watched as they used their short handmade Tajik brooms and a big metal dustpan to collect the debris in the wide, deep, open gutter running parallel to the street in front of their house -- the same as the gutters that line all of the streets here in Dushanbe, including our neighborhood, and which generally have a small but lively stream of water running through them. (You can see it skirting the corner in the photo above.)

It occurred to me then: hmmm, we don't really do that at our house -- let alone the trash-on-the-side-of-the-house problem, we don't ever really do that kind of neatening up in the front. I felt a little bit ashamed, but also kind of annoyed: how the hell was I supposed to fit another new domestic task into my day or my week? Or should I add this to the tasks that our housekeeper, who comes two days a week, performs? And I realized, yet again, how (and why) the typical residents of these large private houses situated around a courtyard (havli, in Tajik) are large, extended families, with multiple women and girls (and the occasional boy) who are not employed outside the home but who perform this kind of domestic work that keeps the place running smoothly.

Cut back to our growing awareness of the garbage problem. When it wasn't covered up with snow, we definitely were seeing it plainly and coming around to the fact that we needed to deal with it. But we made excuses. We lamely despaired that we didn't have the tools to gather it all up -- no work gloves to protect our hands; no shovel to get all the wet gunk in the wide street-side gutter or the rotting piles scattered on the strip of grass. We didn't have time -- we'd notice it on our way home or out, when we couldn't really stop and do anything more than make a tiny dent in the job that needed to be done. We'd just remark at how annoying it was, and other people's deed, and bury our heads to the problem.

Dan went out for two extended pick-up sessions one Saturday, using the obvious solution to the no-gloves problem by protecting his hands with plastic bags, and heaving the stuff into several of the huge plastic garbage bags I'd mistakenly bought at the grocery store a while back (finally, a good use, in our household populated with un-American small garbage cans!). But he wasn't able to get all of it, and the dumping continued. (And, strangely we thought, two men who passed by during one of his pick-ups, who'd been conversing in Tajik, switched to Russian as they neared Dan, and said something that he interpreted as a kind of hmph-y tut-tutting of a reaction: "He's collecting it! Filthy!")

Then, one morning when Anya and I got into the car with the driver who takes us most days to and from sadik, he started to relate to me the exchange he'd had with our next-door neighbor as he was waiting. I found myself feeling ashamed and outraged and annoyed and probably several other things, all rolled into one bad sensation. It turned out that the local communal services board representative had come with the intention of talking either to the landlady of our house or to the neighbor himself (I never got the whole story), in order to deliver a complaint about the trash. The neighbor then hired some workmen to pick up the area, and get rid of two cypresses on the strip that had seen recent damage, too. He told our driver that he understood that we weren't throwing the trash, but that the area had to be kept clean, including keeping under control the overgrowth of grass that has nothing to do with dumping but which has stopped up the drainage canal since before we moved in. It wasn't immediately obvious to us as we rode in the car that morning how this was all going to proceed in the future (and really it still isn't).

We aren't sure whether this is our responsibility, or the landlady's, or the embassy's. (And I suspect it doesn't really matter -- it seems pretty plain to me that if it isn't dealt with, the trash problem will be our problem by default, by virtue of its visibility and the perception that, if it exists, we're shirking our duty.)

When I brought over the cookies and thanked our neighbor for the help, he said he planned to keep the area clean, and I of course protested that it was certainly not his responsibility. I think we hope that, now that the real cleaning has been done, we'll be aware of the problem and can maintain the area fairly easily by picking up the now very noticeable pieces of trash that get deposited there bit by bit. (Something I've started contributing to when I have the chance as soon as I can after returning home, if I've noticed a real increase in bits of trash.) And we even purchased a shovel at the neighborhood open-air market -- choosing the blade and requesting that the seller carve an appropriate handle for it -- in order to try to chip away at the vegetation in the canal. (We haven't begun to actually use it yet, but we did buy it!) In any case, however it develops further, the whole affair has opened our eyes to the communal relations in the neighborhood and to our part within them.

Pizza "Obamy" and Chicken Nuggets "Khillari"

There isn't going to be a tidal wave of excitement surrounding the inauguration here in "the Dush" -- at least not when compared with what there is to be had, I'm sure, in any American location, let alone in DC. There were some plans to gather at a colleague's house, but illness thwarted them at the last minute (not mine, the host's). So Anya and I will have to settle for watching the proceedings on our satellite TV broadcast alone. The two of us are settled in before the TV now, watching and listening to the Thanksgiving-Day-parade-like pre-inaugural commentary by the Today show's hosts, and awaiting the official start of kuchi nacht at 9pm as it fast approaches. (Dan is on a work trip to the north of Tajikistan, in the city of Khojand -- home city of our nanny. He expects to miss seeing it on TV. Although, come to think of it, I don't rule out some cafe having a Russian broadcast of the events up there. As many are aware, foreigners are almost as giddy over the transition as most Americans.)

It's funny, someone mentioned "looking forward to the 20th" to me in a recent email, and -- "horrors!," I reflected afterwards -- I actually didn't understand the reference immediately! The inauguration just doesn't come up in one's daily life in Tajikistan as much as must at home. It does pop up in random and unexpected ways, though.

Take last week, for instance, when I joined my fellow expats on a "ladies night" outing to a local restaurant. Three drunkish Tajik businessmen sent us champagne and Raffaelo coconut-coated white chocolate ball candies and, after the slightly masked nervous laughter and giggling around our table waned, and we proceeded to field several questions about Obama, amid invitations to join them at their table and queries about which of our number were single.

Or tonight, when, after I was tipped off that there was a new cafe opening not too far from our house, I went by and looked at the menu. A sign outside boldly proclaimed the new establishment, called "Friends." Or, actually, "F.r.i.e.n.d.s," just like the name of the TV show is written. And announced that they have wifi internet on offer. And, very uniquely for Dushanbe, home delivery. All of it was in Russian and English, so I guess someone has a good idea of his target audience, in this northern neighborhood enclave that does include several diplomatic and expat NGO households. I laughed out loud at the names of three dishes, which really were along the lines of those in this post's title (I can't remember the third -- it wasn't Mishel, wasn't Baiden, and it wasn't Beel. Not Dabl-Yu either.) The proprietor was really friendly, though, and urged me to stay, although I protested that my foreigner friends and I were gathering elsewhere for the festivities. But surely I'll return soon to try out the food and the coffee and the internet.

Baba Yaga (Bzzz Bzzz)

I was reminded a few days ago that, while it is clear from my recent Anya language update that Baba Yaga is beauty-challenged in the nasal department, not everyone may know who she is. As usual, Wikipedia offers a not-too-shabby overview of the classic Slavic fairy-tale witch character. (Apparently Georgii Milliar, in the picture here, was the actor who played Baba Yaga in several Soviet films from the 1930s to the '60s, and sort of seems like the quintessential B. Y. to those who've seen his performances. He's profiled in Russian in the link.)

But Baba Yaga also typically plays a central role Soviet/post-Soviet kiddie New Year's celebrations like the ones we've been taking part in.

For some reason the article I referred to in last year's rundown of this holiday unfortunately has disappeared (together with the source, Moskovskie novosti). But if you look at the many Russian party scripts posted online for ensuring a fun New Year's holiday, my memory of that description is confirmed: Baba Yaga actually shows up in these rote celebrations as more of a laughable, bothersome hooligan character than a truly scary witch. She plays the humorous foil to good ol' Grandfather Frost/Dedushka Moroz and his sidekick Snegurochka, threatening to break up the party because she's been left off the invitation list. The MC (Russian events always need to have an MC...) tries to talk her out of ruining it, high jinks ensue. But ultimately the kids win out with Ded Moroz and Snegurochka's help, and the forces of good reassuringly overcome what was surely in the Communist era meant to be a mildly anti-Soviet example in Baba Yaga.

---

I threw these notes up last week and then, wouldn't you know it, we had the chance for yet another of these staged New Year's gatherings, and my understanding of Baba Yaga's role was borne out and then some!

On Wednesday, Anya's sadik had a field trip to the Dushanbe "Lukhtak" Puppet Theater. I had asked ahead of time what the performance was slated to be, but all the teachers could tell me was it would be in Russian. What they weren't able to predict was that it wouldn't really contain any puppets. (The closest we came to real puppets was the small crow character who outs Baba Yaga after she puts a spell on Ded Moroz in her attempt to spoil the kiddies' fun. Otherwise, all were live actors.)

The show was not so much a play as an extended version of the yolochka party -- unfortunately not the most captivating format for the 2-year-old set when seated in the audience instead of watching more free-form in the lobby. The performance did include some chuckles for the adults, though, beginning with the fact that our "host," the little girl Mashenka, got a phone call a few minutes into the proceedings (when she came on stage with a cellphone on a lanyard around her neck, I first thought this was an indication of a low level of professionalism and concentration on the part of the Lukhtak company, but it soon became obvious that it was an intentional prop). Her half of the conversation allowed us to surmise that it was Snegurochka calling to let her know that Ded Moroz was on his way. Mashenka was only slightly disappointed when Sneggie told her she wasn't going to make the party because she had to greet some guests from Paris.

In another beat or two our attention was drawn to a little alcove at stage left, where Baba Yaga was just waking up, and generating giggles from the older kids as she stretched her limbs, stiffly attempted her morning "zaryadka" (exercises), and admired herself in the mirror as she got dressed for an aerial tour of her woodland fiefdom. (Curiously, Tajik ideas about how a humorous witch ought to dress have a suspicious amount in common with the way crunchy Western NGO-types tend to dress on the weekends, right down to the brightly colored fleece zip-up vest....) At this point, Anya decided she was scared of B. Y. and started crying and protesting, so we had to take a break.

But the funniest part of the "play" for me was when Baba Yaga got her present from Ded Moroz (she'd been convinced to reverse her spell on Ded M., so he'd made his grand entrance, echo-laden mic effects and all): a yellow and black striped floppy hat, whose corporate origins the 4-year-olds next to us immediately identified with enthusiastic shouts of "Beeline!"

Shaky News

We've had a few mild earthquakes lately, the most recent one about a week ago and the very first experience I've had of being aware of a quake while it's happening. Even all that time in northern California, and apparently I'm really not observant of my surroundings enough to feel the ground shake.

The last one lasted for what seemed like quite a while, and it came at about 1:30 in the morning. For some strange reason we were awake at that hour, but I was in bed, reading. The surface I was lying on seemed to turn into a water bed, and the chandelier above me swayed to and fro. I wondered whether I should get up and stand in the doorway. I wondered it some more. I probably had enough time for wondering that I really should have gotten up and stood there, like they say you are supposed to. But then it stopped.

But none of this empirical evidence for a quake was at play in what happened here on Friday, when apparently "thousands of residents in Tajikistan’s capital city of Dushanbe went without sleep, kept awake by a bogus rumor about an impending earthquake." I honestly don't quite know what comment to make on this story, it is so strange to me and so hard for me to imagine acting in this way. Let's hope the "poor flows of information" improve before anything really serious happens here!

The Dinnertime Dispatch

Successful cooking ventures since arriving in Dushanbe:

• Beef curry stew with potatoes and peppers (secret ingredient: Kazakhstan packaged spice mix "Karri" [one of my more positive purchases at Sadbarg!]; secret technique: browning the stew chunks after first dredging in flour mixed with salt, pepper and spice)

• Cabbage, carrot and turnip/rutabaga? soup (the squat, roundish yellow root vegetable sold here in the markets remains a mystery to me -- even after scouring the Wikipedia page... I guess this is closest to a rutabaga, although the way it looks when sold really doesn't look exactly like the images I can find online)

• Apple tart -- gradually adapted from several recipes on Epicurious.com; just your basic flour-sugar-butter-salt-icewater dough, plus sliced apples, with cinnamon and honey and some more sugar, arranged on top, raisins optional (unless you are Anya, then they are de rigueur)

• Oatmeal cookies -- from this recipe (with the sole adaptation of substituting anise liqueur for vanilla extract -- thank you, Istanbul Airport Duty Free)

• Simple ground beef pasta sauce (secret shortcut ingredient: letcho [Hungarian stewed peppers] from a jar)

• Roast chicken and roasted root veggies (simple, but good...)

• Marinated strips of chicken breast (marinade ingredients: a whole lotta minced garlic, onions, lemon juice, and kefir and yogurt, coriander, cumin, and cayenne), pan-fried and eaten in a flatbread sandwich or over cilantro rice
  

• Pan-fried steak (well, it sounds easy, but can you really be confident you won't screw it up?)*
  

• Sour cream pancakes (quick and easy, and pretty tasty, too; recipe c/o The Big Book of Breakfast, often substitute some combination of kefir and yogurt for actual sour cream or local smetana)

* Meat/poultry note: I am still working my way up to the confidence to purchase the butchered meat sold hanging out in the open at the bazaars. So the beef we still buy from the counter at the nicer supermarkets in town, and the chicken is almost universally the Brazilian frozen imports sold in the same Western style supermarkets. But this week maybe I will screw up my courage and get some lamb, at 18 somoni or so per kilo.

Babes in Boots

Thank you to a friend from our Vladivostok days for pointing out to me a recent New York Times piece on how valenki (felted wool Russian peasant boots) have become quite the fashion accessory. Apparently Anya is a pretty darned hip little munchkin.

Valenki are a very rare sight here in Dushanbe (and, to be fair, winter here typically is not quite harsh enough to warrant wearing them). When Anya showed up to sadik on the first snowy winter morning we've had in the flowery boots we bought last winter in Vlad, Anya's sadik teachers oohed and aahed very admiringly.

As I remember that purchase, I can't help but think how well that cute little pair of baby valenki illustrates the remarkable distance between Vlad and Dushanbe in economic terms. Those shoes are a good-looking, rather stylish, well-made pair of Russian-made boots bought for a reasonable price in this curiously Russian kids' "super-store" called "Bubl'-Gum" (a funny play on the words "bubble gum" and "GUM," the classic Soviet state department store). I remember having been told when we arrived in Vlad in October 2006 how the first outlets of that chain in town had radically improved local shopping options for toys, kids' clothing, and diapers.

But there is absolutely no store like that here in Dushanbe -- nothing even close. And there are really no comparable goods like that here, either (I know, I made that clear in my musing after a downer of a visit to Sadbarg). Most manufactured goods you find here are depressingly ugly, poorly-made, and overpriced, and virtually nothing is mass manufactured or distributed from within Tajikistan. I remember many times thinking that it seemed like "everything" for sale in Vlad was from China, but here in Dushanbe that seems much more literally to be the case. Anyway, I guess it's kind of interesting that a little perspective can give me a new appreciation of one aspect of Vlad!

Heard Recently Inna Biiiig Dushanbe

Surayo says "prosnulas'." That's Russian. Mommy says "wake." Dat's English.

Anya had a bwess. [= Anya sneezed -- and someone said "bless you."]

Baba Yaga has a yucky nose. [That New Year's yolka in the Mayakovsky lobby really made an impression.]

Snow goes "crunch!". Like an apple. In your mouth. Not with your toes and your feet. 'Cuz that would be dirty. And silly. And turkey-lurkey.

That was a present for Annika. [About a present given in honor of the Festival of Lights. And after some attempt at explanation from Mommy...] Hanukkah is Jake's mommy. [Usually followed by a groan and shrug of the shoulders from Mommy.]

Novyi gott [Russian for New Year's, complete with unvoiced "d" at the end of words, just like the Russian speakers do it.]

How you say bus in Russian? You say "trolleibus (twayay-booss)," and you say "avtobus (aftoh-booss)." Dat's Russian!

Marina says "ty khochesh' chornye shuziki?" [= "want black 'shoesies'?"; a very correct memory, indeed]

[While putting pants or tights on] "Pull 'em up!" (...Surayo says "podnimai")

Want li'l bit of nonn! [= naan, Tajik flatbread. Also frequently heard: the Russian word for flatbread, "lepyoshka."]

The Shipping News

After checking in with the Belgian shipping subcontractor in charge of getting a portion of our stuff from California to Dushanbe, or at least at the present stage of its journey, Dan submits this Shipment Update:

Current location of CNS [consumables {read: beer... and some other stuff}] and HHE [household effects] from the US: Ishim, Russia. (What an appropriate name, incidentally ["Ishim" sounds suspiciously like the Russian for "Uh, we're looking for it..."])

An overview of Ishim:

* Current weather: -11 C

* Predicted low over next five days: -22 C

* Distance from Dushanbe (as the crow flies): 1,214 miles

* Approximate road distance: 1,400 miles

* Minimum number of borders between Ishim and Dushanbe: 3

* Maximum: 5

And some other fun facts:

* Temperature at which beer may freeze: -5 C (depending on alcohol content)

* What happens when supercooled beer is jostled: it explodes

* Estimated arrival date of our HHE: January 15

* Percentage likelihood of that happening: 1.

In other news, our 2006 Xterra being shipped from Vladivostok may run into serious trouble getting registered here in Tajikistan, if our colleagues' experience is any model. Reportedly because of the connection between tinted car windows and violence and/or criminality here since independence (as well as in other unstable areas in the former Soviet Union), the President of Tajikistan outlawed tinted windows earlier this year. And since it was penned personally by the president, apparently no one in the administration wants to be the first to try to sneak a darkened car around the edges of this decree. One 2008 Xterra has been on ice in the embassy parking lot for almost 2 months while the issue gets bandied about, and we don't have high hopes for our vehicle.

The market for used Nivas is lookin' pret-ty attractive right now...

The Many Faces of Anya's New Year's 2009

I finally uploaded a selection of pics from the embassy holiday kiddie bash.

As you can see from the images, we went from inquisitive to happy and engaged, to interrupted and bratty, to bored, to interested in our own visage, all in the space of about an hour and a half. I guess that is what being two years old is all about.

Bzzz

When you arrive into Dushanbe airport, one of the first things you see, and by far the brightest color you see in at least the first thirty minutes after landing, is the yellow and black ad for the Russian "Beeline" mobile telephone company. I find that kind of amusing.

Beeline was the company whose shameless use of product placement throughout the 2007 sequel to the classic Russian New Year's movie "The Irony of Fate" went above and beyond anything I've seen in American movies. (If you look carefully at the movie poster here you can see the prominently displayed yellow and black Christmas tree ball. None of the other very obvious products placed in the movie, including Toyota and Calve mayonnaise, got even close to that kind of a boost.)

You do have to admit, Beeline's logo does have a great visual element in those yellow and black stripes, which are easily stretched and pulled to fit new images.

In Tajikistan, from what I can see, they must have just recently begun to enter (muscle their way into?) the market. They also must have some comfy relationship with the government to allow their big "welcome to Tajikistan" ad to greet you as you wait for the passport control officials to do their job. Oh, and although on our first arrival passport control had run out of immigration forms, on my second arrival they had a fresh batch. With guess-whose ad printed on the reverse side? You got it: Beeline. And in the center of town, their billboards and ads stand out pretty well -- especially when you consider that probably about 50% of billboards in Dushanbe actually don't carry ads at all, but sayings from the government and usually quotes attributed to President Rahmon.

I find their attempts to use Central Asian imagery in their ads a little clever -- I'm not sure what Tajiks think of it. I need to take some pictures of the print ads I've seen around town. Online I couldn't find the most interesting attempts to incorporate local visuals into their material.

Obviously they can fit the yellow and black into a classic Russian image, too, like the nesting dolls. Although I think it's possible that they may only feel the need here in Central Asia. On Beeline.ru you just see lots of modern Europeans smiling and living the good life with the ease of communication that Beeline apparently affords. I don't see any matryoshki there.

Anyway, the Central Asian teabowls (piala) below will have to serve as my best example here, until I can get out there with a camera.