Historic Khujand

We took a trip to the north of Tajikistan for the first part of last week, to the city of Khujand. Dan and his colleague were going for work, and it seemed like a good (who knows, maybe already the last?) chance to tag along under such circumstances (hotel room paid for, ground transportation already planned and covered, etc.) and see something new.

So Anya and I got up early on Monday morning and went to the domestic terminal with the guys, sat in the chilly waiting hall, let ourselves be bussed out to the plane -- a frighteningly ancient (1970s vintage?) prop plane, an An-24 I guess. But the flight took only 50 minutes, so we didn't have too long to sit there and wonder how it was that this plane was flying so successfully.

The trip as a whole was a lot of fun, but it does make me marvel at the difference between traveling with a pre-schooler and either traveling alone or with someone older than about 8. It's just funny how slow you move, how much less you do each day (especially when a handful of prime hours are spent inside for napping!), but also what a different perspective you get on everything you see and experience on a trip where your main companion is 3.

As we've done in other provincial cities in the former Soviet Union, we stayed in the hotel's luxury suite -- not exactly the Four Seasons, but not too shabby nonetheless. Two rooms, one of which had a crazy contemporary sofa set with accessory pillows -- 1 round, 1 star-shaped -- that entertained Anya half of the time we were there. About a 100-degree curve of plate glass windows in the corner of the room, covered with curtains that entertained Anya for the other half of the time we were there. A jacuzzi tub that leaked and didn't have the water pressure to fill it in our lifetime. (Similar to another provincial hotel experience in Khabarovsk, Russia.) No honor bar, but a plates of dried apricots and a plate of pistachios left in the fridge (undoubtedly by another guest, but who's to say, really?). A big screen plasma TV that got Russian music videos and BBC World. What more could you really want?

The first day was cloudy but no precipitation. We checked in after our midmorning arrival and headed in our separate directions: Dan and colleague to work meetings, Anya and I to explore the town. Hotel Vatan was located really centrally, just a 5 minute walk to Khujandi Theater and the Sugd regional history museum. We used the clear weather to explore outside, since we'd heard the next 2 days would bring rain and/or snow. We forced ourselves to stop after a snack of several "healthy cookies" and get outside, walking past the theater and north along the "alley" park leading up to the Syr Darya river. Stopped at a park bench to have a mandarin orange and pick up some leaves. Strolled up to the river while singing several verses of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm."

Turned to admire the defunct Leninobod hotel building and what is billed as the largest Lenin statue in Central Asia (from afar). Turned along the river and up Lenin Boulevard to look for a cafe for lunch. Found a cafe in the Youth Palace (Dvorets molodezhi or Qasri javonon) where we had noodle soup, a breaded cutlet, and green tea. Got along famously with the friendly waitress, who addressed us in Russian but with the funny addition of a markedly northern Tajik question suffix tacked onto her sentences. This was also the lunch where Anya learned to love green tea out of Central Asian piyola teacups (the ones that are just like little bowls, without handles).

Then headed back to the hotel for a little bit of play and a nap!

And essentially that is where the sightseeing ends on any particular day, since Anya generally sleeps from 2-4:30, and by that time the sun is going down already. We went out for dinner with a friend from Dushanbe who was also in town and, as they say in the Madeline book, "that's all there is, there isn't any more."

On Day 2 we were planning to go with Dan and colleague an hour's drive away to the nearby city of Istaravshan, another city with over two thousand years of history behind it and reportedly a really interesting place to see, but since it was raining and we move so slow (and it wasn't clear how we'd get back midday for the nap), we decided to take it easy and remain in Khujand proper.

The highlight of the day was the regional history museum. This is a prime example of what I mean by the amazingly different perspective you get when your traveling companion is a 3-year-old. Anya's favorite part was the section where the floor was made of plexiglass and in the 3 or 4 inch space beneath it was basically a model of an archeological dig: sand and shards of pottery, pieces of wooden beams, gold coins, metal vessels and old shoes, etc. We spent a long time there trying to guess what the various artifacts were. So much time that I couldn't drag her away to look at anything else and finally got bored of it myself. So with some difficulty I bundled us out the door and across the square to another cafe for some homemade pelmeni (tushbera in Tajik; basically meat-filled dumplings), more green tea, and the very tasty Khujandi kulcha (small round flatbread bread loaves made with a touch more oil than regular Tajik naan).

Day 3 it did snow -- wet and sloppy. After much cajoling I talked Anya into going out of the hotel for a shopping trip to find the teapot that she claimed Bear needed to have for a birthday present. We stopped in all the toy stores between Hotel Vatan and the main market square of the city, admiring all the fun things on offer.

It seemed to me like there was more mid-level consumer-oriented commerce in Khujand, and these stores were a good example. I guess we don't spend a lot of time seeking this stuff out in Dushanbe, when we're not on vacation, but it still seems to me like in Dushanbe you either have bazaar-based commerce and items that are pretty cheaply made and sold, or you have super-fancy storefronts where you wonder who on earth really shops there. In Khujand I saw a lot more middle-of-the-road shops (and even well made commercial signs all over the place, very consumer-oriented) that seemed to hold things that people really want and can afford to buy.

We had a lot of fun looking at a flock of birds in the bazaar square and then tramped around the inside of the bazaar for a bit, me trying to surreptitiously buy a small collection of trinkets to serve as the small gifts in a makeshift Advent calendar once we got home. Along the way we finally found the child's umbrella that Anya has actually been suggesting that we buy her for over a month now -- the first thing she has so specifically asked for in her life -- and the plastic tea set for Bear. Then we hopped in a taxi and made it back to one of the more famous restaurants in town (Zaituna) in time to share Khujandi rice plov (raisins and dried currants seemed to me to be the difference in the north) and more green tea with Dan and his colleague.

A nap and some packing later and we were on the road to the airport. By the time we got through check-in it was driving snow outside, and I was somewhat concerned about the flight, despite the fact that we could see from the airport waiting hall that we would be flying in a newer and more substantial Boeing this time. But I guess they make this flight several times a day and often in snow, so it actually turned out very smoothly, thanks to Tajik Air's pilot. Made it back home to Dushanbe in time for a book and bedtime!

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.

Market Rounds, Part 2

(Hey, I'm an American, shopping is what we do, right?)

Seems like this is the norm for me: getting to know a new place is apparently tied pretty closely with figuring out where to buy stuff. I suppose that isn't very strange, after all. You appear in a new place, and you need to eat. You need your daily stuff, like soap, shampoo, etc. You need a few comforts that you may not have brought with you. You may have the benefit of a whole container-load of your existing stuff being sent behind you, but while you're waiting you probably need some things that, at packing time, didn't seem essential enough to stuff in the suitcase. DVDs to watch. A toy or two for the kid when the ones you've got are getting old or when she seems to be reaching a new stage. Warmer shoes when it starts to get colder and rain a bit. A hat or a scarf. Tupperware, or what passes for it in Tajikistan. Spices! You get my drift. So where do you find all this stuff?

Actually, it's sort of appropriate too that I'm thinking so much about shopping and "marketing" -- and not because we're in some ancient, bustling node on the Silk Road. Apparently Dushanbe ("Monday" in Persian/Tajik) was the site of a little settlement whose market day was Monday. The modern city, though, is pretty much a Soviet creation, and it dates to the 1920s, when the Red Guards rolled in, put down local resistance to Soviet-Russian rule, and took over the emirate of Bukhara. That was when they started to reshape this area into the republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

The central, older part of Dushanbe is kind of laid out along a roughly north-south axis, along the river Varzob. (If you look at the link, you've got the river pretty clearly cutting through the center of your view; the main downtown of Dushanbe is laid out to the northwest of the hippodrome -- the easily identifiable oval to the east of the river. And all of that sprawl on the river's west bank is comprised of much more recent neighborhoods and prefab construction -- "novostroiki" -- built more after 1970.) We don't tend to venture out too far beyond that basic center of town, but we still seem to do a fair amount of traveling here and there.

In the beginning, it seemed like TsUM and the Green Market summed up our most frequent shopping experiences. TsUM was an obvious place for us to go, working as we were on the post-Soviet model, when we needed basic household things after we moved in, like plastics or kitchenware (we got the interim Minnie Mouse potty chair there, and some random plastic tubs for laundry and other stuff, those sorry excuses for Tupperware, that sort of thing).

Most of the expats or American diplomatic folks we met from the start tended to do their fresh food shopping at the central "Green Market." That place is impressive! And luckily I have already gotten fairly used to the dirty, loud, chaotic market experience and now can do it better than I could at one time. If in Vladivostok it just seemed like the wisest choice, where you ought to go for good quality produce at the right price, here in Dushanbe it seems to me that the Western style supermarkets really are almost not an option for produce. They carry some basics and some things that bazaar sellers just don't apparently bring in (although I'm still learning -- maybe oyster mushrooms really are available at the bazaar), but if you need a good range of basic fresh staples and root vegetables, you've got to just hit a regular open market and save the supermarket for what it's good at.

Without a car, the Green Market -- in the very center of town -- really isn't that great an option for me, so now I tend to go to our local bazaar, up at the north end of our neighborhood (and almost at the north end of town). It's much smaller than the Green Market (which really is defined at its main corner by a funny greenish building in that kitschy Orientalist style -- imagine a built style to match the cheesy "Sindbad" type lettering on the railroad station and the airport, and I think you get the picture). Ironically the Green Market is actually looking a little grey and sooty ever since about the time we arrived. Apparently warring bandits who were vying for control of the selling there set fire to the main building literally on the morning that I was first shown the market. When I walked past it the other day, it wasn't smoldering any more, but it still kind of just looked like charred heap of greenish metal. That doesn't mean the selling in the other parts of the bazaar doesn't continue unabated, though -- the market is really a sprawling entity that sort of starts at that green corner, but encompasses larger structures, smaller structures, outdoor territory, etc.

The Varzob neighborhood bazaar is more my speed, although of course it doesn't have the selection and variety (or the kind of rich-feeling Central Asian-y experience) you get at the Green Market. It's kind of just a plainish corner market -- it has a rectangular permanent building with sellers set up inside, food, housewares, clothes, etc. all piled up on glass-front display cases; several semi-permanent metal kiosk or trailer types of storefronts, each divided up into little cells and each of those with a seller inside; open produce areas, where people set up their wares on old dusty blue metal countertops; and then there are the butcher section, the hardware section, and the cooked food sections.

And while we're on the subject of fresh produce and where to find it (before I take a break and continue my shopping descriptions at a later time), I have to comment on the excellent dinner we had for the second time this week at the restaurant Yangtse Tian (I hope I'm spelling that correctly), complete with green and just a tad crunchy stir-fried bok choi. I don't know how they do it, but these people evidently truck the veg in from China! Some of our friends have named this place as their top restaurant in Dushanbe, and I think I'm close to placing it at the top of the personal favorites I've accumulated so far, too. And apparently a hall full of Chinese people whom I have yet to see on the streets of Dushanbe agree.