Changing of the seasons

24 October 2010

It is getting noticeably colder. Perhaps more towards what is usual in Dushanbe for this time of year. In the flat the winter clothes are coming out of the voluminous cupboard, which houses most of the three women’s and one young boys’ possessions. This means more to me, somehow, than the putting on of jumpers and jackets as we do in the west – at least for the women. Many women, while they love wearing their traditional dresses in the summer, and are a riot of colour, pattern and pizazz, in winter it is warmer to wear western dress.

So G went to the Kurvon market today, and bought a dark grey polar neck and paler grey cardigan and sheer tights – which she is now wearing with a knee length skirt with oversize buttons and stilettos. My idea that women’s clothes here expressed their different ideas, whether traditional or modern, was wrong. If it is true that Tajik women have been able to escape the massive politicisation of what they wear that goes on elsewhere, then I am glad. Though I know that Rahmon has tried to ban hijabs in the past, however women here still wear them, and apparently their numbers are growing. I even saw a young woman in a hijab and a knee length skirt and tights today!

As a counterpart to what is going on surrounding Islamic women, whether in France, Turkey or Iran, I was shocked and fascinated that a local council  in Italy, Castellammare di Stabia might try and ban miniskirts as well as football games and sunbathing by the beach! Especially as the party agitating for this calls itself the People of Freedom Party! As a subversion to the events in France, see this link on two Muslim women wearing niqabs and miniskirts, sashaying around Paris, waving at police.

It is interesting to think that a visitor here in summer could (if they thought as I did) have a completely different idea of women than someone visiting in the winter. 

Sunday was a quiet day, but even today a cleaning and a scrubbing takes place by the other women in the flat. I have been holed up in my room, picking at grapes and pistachios, learning my Persian. I have decided that even though it is different from Tajik in words, where Tajik has taken on Russian words and Persian retained an Arabic vocabulary, that if you can speak Persian well (ha ha) you will be able to communicate in Tajikistan as well.

Meetings and greetings

22/10/10

It has been a busy few days juggling attending a conference where I understand nothing but there are academics I want to meet, meeting new friends and having impromptu Persian lessons and being introduced to other scholars.

Have been trying to work through the intricacies of Iranian taarof and balance peoples’ needs, both stated and unmentioned, from different directions and cultures. Which is all normal life, I suppose, and part of staying put somewhere for a while!  

So on Wednesday, I had plans, people to see places to try and find (!) but when I checked my email they all changed as the President of the Institute of Sciences, Professor Ilolov, was happy to meet with me. I had to hurry, wearing the wrong clothes and arrive as soon as possible. S had fixed it for me!

He met me in the boardroom near his office and he was really helpful, said that he would speak to the Director of the National Museum who works with him so that I can go and research the collections, which is fantastic. I have also learnt from him and one of his colleagues at the Institute of Sciences, a Professor of Anthropology more about what the Samanids mean to the scholars. It is important to them not just that the empire stretched far and wide, ruled by a strong dynasty, or that it was just the resurgence of Persian culture and language  but that it was a time of great intellectual prowess, with the best minds of the age such as Ibn Sina, Biruni, al-Ghazali. These scholars are still highly rated today.

People are more polite here on the bus, certainly they will get up for older people, the infirm, people carrying bags etc. (rather worryingly that also includes me, as a woman, or a foreigner – or maybe just old!). More disturbing however is the number of children working on the buses taking money for the rides, during the school day. I do not know how many children don’t attend school on a regular basis here.  There are no tickets here, just as there used to be no receipts,  meaning the opportunities for corruption were and still are rather large.

I have just returned from J’s comfortable home, where I ended up staying last night. Where I am living is not on the main road, and the thought of trying to explain to a taxi driver the snaking path through the tower blocks did not really appeal. Even with my map drawn by G – look out for the nine storeyed tower block.

J is an Iranian woman living here in Tajikistan doing research on the Shahnahme, which I am reading at the moment. The book is the Persian book of kings, which tells the story of creation until the beginning of the Arab invasions. It is full of heroes, dragons and evil divs or devils. It is one of the great works of Persian literature, claimed by Iranians and Tajiks alike. The book can be compared to the great Homeric epics or to the Hindu Ramayana. It is full of deeds of derring do, battles and feasting, clever women and beautiful men built like cypress trees. Great way to end my day, reading from it.

We spoke about so many things, J is a lovely, open and fascinating woman, who feels close to all cultures, thoughtful and good fun too. She gave me a Persian lesson, and has promised more in the future.

She cooked a delicious lunch of Gorme Sabzi – chicken and spinach with rice and beans, which does sound rather Caribbean, now I write it, but the flavour is completely different, subtle and saffron scented. Very Iranian dish. An Iranian could serve you a feast fit for a queen in their own palace and still complain about their poor cooking and the desert that is their home!

The Professor came round for lunch and I managed to ask him some questions. Interesting hearing about the differences between now and the Soviet era.  He was kind and spoke good English, even though he enjoyed having someone else translate for him. There were continuous exhortations to learn Persian, and then he could really have a proper discussion with me.

Later we watched a Robin Hood cartoon that I remembered from my childhood, with fox as Robin, Prince John (PJ) is the thumb sucking lion and his evil snake henchman. It brought back old memories. Now it is watched by Iranian and Tajik children on a Persian satellite channel. Strange!

Staying in an Iranian house is fraught with taarof dangers! Don’t whatever you do, complement anything too profusely, it  might be offered to you. Do not, like I did, enter such house with holes in the toes of your socks  (shoes obviously come off at the door), you are likely to be given some new ones!  It was safe to praise the wallpaper – which I did, in the kitchen, as it can’t be removed. J kept on saying “I know your customs are different Katherine, but you are in the East now, and this is how we do it here”!

My dress is nearing completion at the tailors, S who is making it for me is a sweet faced nineteen year old studying fashion design who wants to go to USA and continue her studies. The place rang with “Hello Katherine” and offers to come for lunch. Such a wonderful, welcoming female atmosphere.

Later I got back to the smell of baking bread, made in the traditional Tajik way with pinched edges and patterned with imprinted circles on top. The loaves are usually circular and a hand span thick. G told me to try the bread baked in tandoors on the street, which is delicious. Her mother can bake it like that but she doesn’t have the knack, as it means stretching your arm into a boiling oven, without blistering it.

 It is full moon tonight, I saw it looking over the family groups on flashing rollerskates as they circled the Circus, or Circa as it is known. Many Soviet cities seem to have their permanent circus building, I think it is still in use, on an irregular basis as its original function.

Cyrillic letters are funny, the word can start quite 'normally' T – A – X – for example, and then as it continues you realise you are at sea, that this is not the tax office. The sounds are not what  you expect and there is no dry land of the Roman script to cling to.  At least with Persian script you know that it is totally different and there are going to be no clues offered, but no false friends either, to those who know the Roman one. People strangely seem to be impressed with my Persian writing, which is good (that they are, not that the writing is), if only in comparison with my awful speech.

City water wheel

19/10/10

Today I woke up to one of Dushanbe’s scourges, no water in the taps. The rows of bottles in the bathroom with pale shades of water in, stored for a rainy day (as it were) made more sense now. Even tonight when I came home, there was still no water. I knew before I even got in the door as there were women collecting water in large canisters from the stream by the block, next to the small market.

Every day I cross the stream on a concrete bridge to get to SaadiShirozistreet. I look right and see the simple wooden water wheel turning, but I did not think I would see people collecting water there, even though I know that the Dushanbe water supply is notorious. It has been known to come out of the taps browny-yellow, carry typhoid or probably both. G washed her hair tonight; to do so water must be collected and heated, if not quite over a fire, but with the electric element. She has a presentation tomorrow on the economy of Iran.

I managed to find the office I was hunting for yesterday. Well I say found, only with the help of F who kindly came to get me, where I was hanging out, outside the Chinese Embassy, which is in a very grand position on Rudaki Street. I think it is one of the only, if not the only country to have been granted this honour by Tajikistan.I was glad to see that it was not me that couldn’t read maps, it’s just that they were both somewhat skewed!

F has found me another family to stay with which is great, I am learning so much more about life here, obviously, than I would if I stayed in a hotel, besides it being lovely to have people to chat to about our days. Why am I here on my own, F asked? I answered that if I was with a friend, I would spend all my time talking to them, in a little bubble of Englishness, whereas now I have to get out there and meet Tajiks!

We went for lunch in a government canteen with another woman, H, from her office. She was a history teacher in Badakhshan and spoke about how during the Soviet period they taught predominantly Soviet history, though Tajik and world history did get some kind of look in. During that period they only had one book on Tajik history, called “The Tajiks” By Bobojon Ghafurov, who is so revered as a Tajik historian, who has told them their history, that he has an avenue called after him in the west of the city. She now works in women’s rights and female empowerment projects, I was pleased and somewhat surprised to learn that the President Rahmon is a big supporter of such projects. The canteen was very grand, and the food, though simple was good. H spoke about how she used to visit this canteen when she was a student, and that this area was her stamping ground as her student accommodation was not far away from here.

After independence H made sure that she read all the history books that were becoming newly available. The curriculum changed, and Tajik history took a place centre stage in history lessons. She was really interesting to talk to and suggested many people I should talk to around the city.

Saying goodbye to F, she saw a friend of hers, K, coming up the street. She called herself an Orientalist, and was hoping to come to the Institute of Ismaili Studies next year on the STEP programme. She kindly suggested that she accompany me to the nearby SadriddinAini Museum. He was a writer who spanned the end of the Emirate and the Soviet invasion. This orphan boy from a village between Bukhara and Samarqand, who went to the madrassa in Bukhara and ended up sitting in the desk I saw as the first President of the Tajik Academy of Sciences. They have a photograph of his one storey white walled house in the village.

K translated what the guide told us about his life and the objects in the museum. I have read his autobiographical book about growing up in the village and going to school in Bukhara, which is full of humanity, the tenuousness and corruption of things under the Emirate. He has a statue in front of the Bekhzod Museum and I travel down the adjoining road named after him every day. There was another room that the guide couldn’t show us, as up until recently Kamollidin Aini, the big man’s son, has personally showed visitors around. However since his death in August 2010, no one has been able to find the key. The room has remained locked.
K agreed that if I needed a translator on visits to the Academy she would be happy to do it on her return from Khujend. Great.

From the Aini Museum I went to a screening of an Afghan piece of movement theatre at the Bactria Centre. It was so moving, ten people with minimal props apart from their bodies and their voices. Telling the story of the wars and violence against women that go round and round there.It especially m There were unexpected French subtitles which was good. The director was with us, tall and willowy she was on stage being thanked in headscarf and manteaux. Here in a short skirt showing slim legs, just across the border. For a while during the performance one of the actors’ headscarves had slipped down, and I wondered if that wasn’t problematic at a performance in Kabul? I wanted to ask her, but am sure she is bored of speaking about what women wear or can’t wear and wanted to talk about their performances. An Iranian woman, J, of whom, more later, was also very surprised at this.

And for those of you who have asked for photographic evidence - next time I promise!

Botanical Gardens and at the Maierkovsky theatre

18/10/10

Another unseasonably warm day in Dushanbe saw me seeking some contacts which I had been told to visit by colleagues at the IIS. Having the street address is no guarantee of finding a place in Dushanbe however, even when you can find the street on not one but two maps. Having searched for over 40 minutes for it, and just as I was giving up, I came across an entrance which was also not on either of my two maps. Intrigued, I ventured in, running the gauntlet of the policemen and other young men hanging out.

It was the main entrance to a park, the Botanical Gardens as I worked out. I was struck by the kitschness of it, and the way it combined into a fantastic pastiche the Islamic and ancient Iranian pre-Islamic styles, evoking a multifaceted past; underlined by the medallions of ancient kings which lined the walls. An Islamic dome topped this grand entrance covered with a weaving geometric interlacing snaking its way round the curved surface in blues, whites and golds. Beneath the dome are reliefs in plaster of standard bearers and archers known from Achaemenid Persepolis in south-west Iran. Although their empire never truly stretched up this far into Transoxiania, the Tajik state seems to have appropriated this design and past history as its own.

The figures are surrounded by a border of golden rosettes. This is an even more ancient symbol, used by ancient Sumer during the Uruk period in the 4th millennium BCE. It has been reused and reworked throughout the centuries, where it often is taken to mean fertility. The rosette is also seen over and over again on Samanid pottery thousands of years after it was first seen.

Also interesting are the rulers which have been elevated to mark this monument. Jamshid is in there, Darius, Kourosh Kabir, Vakshounvard, Ismoil Somoni, Anoushiramen Adel, Spitamen, Timour Malik, Sherak, Dewashtich, Moghana and Vaase.

It is noteworthy that Timur Malik, better known to the Western world as Tamurlaine is in there, as he is a king which today is strongly associated with the neighbouring, and not too friendly, Uzbek nation.

Karoush Kabir in turn is better known to us as the 6th century BCE ruler Cyrus the Great,who was famous for his ideas about human rights as well as his treatment of the Jews. The Cyrus cylinder is in the British Museum, but was promised to Iran on loan. This hasn't happened yet, as they said that they have found two more fragments in a drawer, connected to the cylinder that they need to research first. One can only hope that the cylinder does make it to Iran eventually.

Spitamenes was a Sogdian warlord, who lead an uprising of Bactria and Sogdia against Alexander the Great. His daughter Apamea married Alexander's general Seleucius who eventually went on to found a dynasty of his own. Spitamen has also given his name to a first division Tajik football team!

Dewastwich was the last king of Sogdia before the Arab invasion. So in these reliefs Ismoil Somoni keeps company both with his spiritual kingly forefathers and rulers who came after him.

An upper frieze is supported by columns with double griffin headed protomes or capitals, which are also famously found in Persepolis.

It would be very interesting to find out who designed and commissioned this entrance and when it was built, certainly since independence. However the Botanical Gardens must be much older, and must date to at least the mid 20th century, judging from the maturity of the trees. It is really beautiful, and no wonder it is beloved of newly wedsas a location to have their photos taken, I even saw a couple today, on a Monday afternoon.

It is a wonderful, relaxing and peaceful place to wander, reminding me almost of an English park with bandstands and benches in amongst the carefully tended wildness. I will certainly be back.

Later that day I went to the Maierkovsky theatre to the opening night of a week of EU cultural events in Dushanbe hosted by the Swiss Development Cooperation and the Bactria Centre among others. The Minister of Culture was there, as was the French Ambassador. That made the security more understandable, as our bags were checked and the men were scanned. It was interesting seeing the kind of people who made it out to the theatre on a Dushanbe Monday night (the city’s name of course, means Monday, being called after a Monday market, which is what the town was known for before the Russians made it into a capital of their new Autonomous Republic).

After all the introductions and on-stage back slapping, the performance was unusual. The language was Russian, however there were English and French subtitles, hard to see from where I was sitting. There was one woman on stage railing at the world. The pace seemed unchanging, and there did not seem to be any flow, continuity or conclusion to the piece or resolution to her state of mind. Intermittently she spun around, whooping and laughing or crying out. The piece ended with a man playing a tabla and singing a heartfelt melody. Although I did not know what to expect, I certainly still don’t know what to make of it. I don’t think I was the only one, as a fair few people left throughout the performance. The piece was called White Blood.

So finally back home, Dushanbe is quiet at night. I only got home at 8.30 however the streets were noticeably more empty and transport harder to find. Later I tell G about my failure to find the office I was looking for, and she says no wonder, it is completely in the back streets behind the medical centre and very easy to miss.

Kurbon Sunday market

17/10/10

Today G and I went to the market with J and her sister, getting there by 9am. Sunday in Dushanbe seems no different from any other day in the city, business as usual. People have to work as G says. We get a mashrutka there, even with G complaining about waiting for transport, it is usually much faster to get moving than in London.

We met the others at the entrance to the market and I quickly realised that this was not just any old market trip, but to buy J’s trousseau as it were for her forthcoming wedding. I knew that she was involved in one, but not that it was hers!

The market was huge, with guys wheeling carts up and down filled with wares, out of whose way the shoppers had to spring. Underfoot is uneven, not easy when you can’t see the ground for people. There is usually a big gully in the middle of the path – with or without water, but usually with some rubbish there. However in general the market was fairly clean. It sold a myriad of things, from fabric to sellotape, saucepans to pens.

While J said she just had to buy some shampoo even that was fraught with decision and smelling and discussion of the price. We spent over half an hour just deciding what should go in a basket of toiletries, both for him and for her. Nivea was a favoured brand, and think it might have been the real thing, in amongst the Collate and Apeafresh – each with the branding design of their better known brothers. There were perfumes from Paris which were made in Guangjou – Marquise and Cobra, there was Blue Laby [sic!] with a picture of Paris Hilton, there were perfumes which would convey power and riches on their owner, or so the names promised: Millionaire, King, Queen, Warrior, as well as nail varnish called Golden Rose, and an aftershave called Do it!.

In all we bought nivea cream, safety pins, a mirror, nail varnish, bras, knickers, combs, ribbon, basket, shampoo, foundation, saucepans, two pillows, four serving plates, twenty saucers, two large metal trays, selllotape, eyelash curlers, toothbrushes, toothpaste, clothes pegs, lip gloss, deodorant, eye pencils and socks.

J told me about how her husband-to-be, a Pamiri boy of course, was kind and good and that’s why she chose him.

I also managed to fit in buying some material to take to the tailors tomorrow, green with pink roses. So let's see how my traditional dress turns out.

Qishloq wedding

16/10/10

Qishloq in Tajik (and Russian too, I presume) is a ‘village’ and this is where we went to a small village called Turveq, just outside Dushanbe. We went by car with her classmates, with four girls eventually squished into the back, all in their finest glad rags (I do not include me in the glad rags status, but I did my best)! We stopped for a while waiting for what I knew not, until a convoy of cars caught up with us to arrive in the village together.

I was introduced to many of her classmates, of which it seems that G. has some of the best English. Even though we couldn’t communicate except on the most basic of levels, I still garnered a few invitations to people’s homes – bless them! All the boys were wearing the normal college attire, that is a suit. I couldn’t believe that they were forced to wear this to college every day. Girls seem to be able to get away with a bit more and could wear what they wanted. Funny to compare these suited and booted young men to UK students expressing their identity and just dressing how they like.

We arrived at the wedding which was in a house in the village with a band playing outside and people crowding around. We picked our way, G’s friends taking my arm, the others in the highest of heels, across the yard and were quickly ushered into a small room with a feast laid out on the floor and sat cross legged on the ground. All her classmates and me fitted snugly into this long and narrow room - just the size for 15-20 people round a cloth the width of a table.

We ate with our fingers mostly tearing off parts of enormous chapatti – which is also what they call it, and using it to pick meat and gravy from the stew. The gravy was fatty and delicious, for Tajiks, with herbs swimming in the grease. The lamb was tender and served with tasty onions. We also had another similar soup, fruit, sweets, sambusa (which is similar to what we know as a samosa, but with a more doughy outer covering), and Fanta and grape juice to drink.

There was much laughter and M, who is G’s best friend, and also from the Pamirs, introduced me to “my future husband!” indicating a brown haired smiling boy sitting next to her.

After the food was the dancing, which was great fun, the motion is in the arms and hands which twirl around each other, as dancers circle one another. It seems men and women are able to dance together. Sometimes one person is in the centre and the others surround them, clapping.

Unfortunately for those in heels the ground was uneven and difficult to dance. I was glad of my flip flops. This put a slight dampener on the two women whom I knew loved dancing. We stayed to watch the groom’s hair being cut by his father to much applause, while wedding guest filled the inner pockets of his suit with money. He was seated on an armchair placed on a carpet, which somehow, outside, looked like a throne.

On the way home we were stopped by the police, I was slightly nervous as I had no identity papers on me at all, not even a copy of my passport. He wanted a fine as we were travelling with four in the back of the car. But somehow the combination of the driver and a couple of pretty girls persuaded the policeman, and convinced him that we should be allowed to go on our way. We weren’t going much further anyway.

“Dushanbe I love you!” called out M, dressed in a sparkling yellow outfit, “this is my city.”

Later, this evening, I was looking at G’s photos of her family, it is interesting how many of them were taken in front of the Somoni statue. When asked about it, she couldn’t really explain why, it just seemed like a good place to go, a worthy backdrop for the family photo. There was also one photo taken in front of the Ibn Sina statue, but many more with Ismoil towering in the background.

It was also interesting seeing G in lots of western clothes as I have only seen her wearing traditional dress. However this is, I think, just in the summer, when it is so much cooler to wear a loose long dress and trousers. In winter she is in knee length skirts, boots and leather jackets.

Talk of weddings and at the tailors

16/10/10
I have been here a week, one which has been rich with new experiences.
At the moment my hand is tingling from the latest: putting my hand in a bucket of warming water, being heated by an element so I can wash my hair. Not sure after the first time, I did it again, dipped my hand in to check the water temperature and got a weak electric shock!

Yesterday I was at the Bactria Centre and planning to meet with Antoine Buisson, who is interested in the Samanids as well as being Director of Educational Programmes there. The Bactria Centre is run by the French charity ACTED, and a cultural centre for visual art – both ancient heritage and contemporary practice as well as music and teaching of English. I also saw that in their new building on the same road as the National Museum, they had Tai Chi teaching. I chatted to Antoine for a few moments and he kindly agreed to meet with me. He also told me about an international conference taking place next week in Persian literature which I hope to attend in Dushanbe, along with other cultural events which would be interesting for me to see, and if possible meet people. So that has rather altered my plans. It makes sense I think to stay in Dushanbe for another week, as there are still some more people I want to meet with, before heading south. Having spoken to Paul in KT he is very relaxed about when I arrive, which is great.

As I walked around the city with G she was telling me about her dream wedding, which would be in Dushanbe, in a restaurant, where she and her groom would arrive in a limousine. She wants to wear white, rather than red for the traditional Pamiri bride. I also think she will find it hard not to dance! Her parents wouldn’t mind her getting married in Dushanbe; in fact her father is happy for her to travel abroad for a couple of years before getting married. I would imagine that travelling as an unmarried woman is still unusual here. However her parents would find it hard to (read couldn’t) tolerate G marrying someone who is not a Pamiri Ismaili, ‘a boy from the Pamirs.’

Just then, we saw a wedding with a limo drawing up and laughing, well dressed guests milling around. “That’s what I want!” said G.
She would like to join her friends in USA who are learning English during the day and working in restaurants etc at night. She would love to do it, and is not afraid of how hard she will have to work, craving to be busy, and in a place where other people are busy too.

Downstairs the man is crying out buy my wares, selling them from apartment block to apartment block, picking his way amidst the playing children.
This flat has two main rooms, a kitchen and a small sunlit dining area, at the moment with no table, but where I am sitting, my laptop doing what it does best. There is no fridge, no oven and only one hob which is connected to the socket by two dangerous looking wires, which the little boy likes playing with: “Nakheyr” “No!”. He can be very sweet like all two year olds, calling “Apash, bir bir” Older sister [me], come and play… However he can also be a right tearaway in a two year old way, calling out “kissi nani” over and over again which sweet though that might sound in English, in Tajik is very rude!

We met MF and his friend quickly to say happy birthday, they were sitting in a beautiful park with benches and flower beds surrounding foutains. MF was quite happy to put his bag on a neighbouring bench, occupied by another guy, as there was no room for it on ours, and, as I presume he didn’t want to put it on the ground! Something which would be unheard of in London.

After meeting her friends, I accompanied G to visit the tailors to pick up her new outfit for the wedding. A traditional dress, similar to a salwar kameez, but with a longer (and often looser top, so that it works like a dress). The fabric was a black velveteen with pink roses and pink flower beading round the neck. There was some debate as to whether there should have been more beaded flowers around the short cap sleaves, but the seamstress said, and I agreed that it just would have been too itchy, especially while dancing.

The tailors was funny experience, a room full of women each at a sewing machine and one at the ancient looking iron, all asking me where I was from and what I thought about Tajikistan. I decided, like in India to have an outfit made at the tailors. So we will go tomorrow and chose some fabric at the market.

We had photos together, I had just asked them if they would mind me taking a photo of the tailor’s shop dripping with fabric cuts and beads, they answered smiling. And then there was a merry dance of my photo being taken with various seamstresses. One of them was my age with a 17 year old daughter who looked like her and was off to college to study medicine. She was keen to practice her English and kept asking me where I was born and how many people lived in London. She could hardly believe that there were as many people living in that city as in the whole of her country c.7million. Funny to think I could have a child of school leaving age.