A Week Down

The second week of February wasn't the best for Dushanbe.

Already many in the capital have been limited to 15 hours of electricity per day, thanks to power cuts introduced in January. (The bulk of the country's population, living outside Dushanbe, has gotten as little as 3 hours per day since the rations went into effect.)

On Tuesday, the 10th, it was announced that Dushanbe's 15 hours of power per day would be reduced to 11 hours in most large residential neighborhoods. We of course are lucky enough to have a generator, which makes the frequent switching on and off an annoyance that's barely worth mentioning. The poor electricity grid and variation in how the power cuts are actually carried out means that not all locals or non-official foreigners experience the troubles in the same way, though. Some neighborhoods have damage that causes power to go out for days at a time; other apartment buildings are either geographically well-placed or have a patron from some ministry among their residents and can escape some of the hardship that way.

But in the midst of all of this, transportation in the city was thrown for a major loop when the minibus marshrutki, the primary mode of getting around town for the majority of people (including Dan, who commutes this way now), were banned from the most important major thoroughfares in town. People woke up and started on their way to work on Monday unprepared for a complicated and confusing journey, unable to predict what alternative route their usual minibus would take or how they'd make any connections that are required to get to their end destination. (Unfortunately for those taking the buses to the US embassy, it's located waaaay at the end of one of those now-forbidden major thoroughfares, so the changes present a particular problem.)

The official announcement from the Dushanbe mayor's office says the bus-taxis can still operate as long as they register with one of the "legit" fixed-route taxi companies in town (I think this is pretty-speak for "as long as you get in bed with (and grease the palm of) the mayor and/or his associates"). And of course even then, truly effective "operation" is off the table, since they still have to avoid those major boulevards.

On Monday afternoon, Dan and I left the embassy together and got in a "tangem," as the buses are called in Tajik (something about the name of a nurse in a Chinese soap opera -- the thousands of little buses that tootle along the streets of the capital are virtually identical white models of a Chinese made minivan), and we heard firsthand from the driver about the havoc it was wreaking. Not only are passengers confused and frustrated, but the drivers have risked a lot in buying their vans and now are worried about losing their investments. The number of drivers has jumped with the return of many migrants from Russia, where work has slowed thanks to the economic crisis. As our driver complained, the government seems to just be toying with its people, when it ought to be behaving responsibly and looking out for their welfare. They turn off the power and watch the financial crisis and add this on top of it? 'What do they expect us to do, how are we supposed to feed our families,' the driver asked, shaking his head in bafflement, but still trying to figure out how to get us to the connection we told him we needed to make in order to get home.

One has to wonder how much Tajikistan's citizens can endure before they can't endure no more. Oh, wait, the International Crisis Group is already spinning out that scenario in its loving little Friday the 13th Valentine to President Rakhmon and his administration, entitled "Tajikistan: On the Road to Failure," complete with tender sweet-nothings such as "failed state" and (probably hyperbolic) analogies to the country's neighbor to the south, Afghanistan.

It may seem like a minor factor, but the weather last week -- constant grey, chilly rain for 5 days out of 6, until Sunday burst forth with sunshine -- didn't help anyone's mood, either. For me personally some new trouble with my laptop and an overheating screen was kind of the icing on the cake.

Not a pretty week in Market-Monday town. Here's hoping this one will be a bit better!