Tajiki Familiarization Course
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TAJIKI FAMILIARIZATION COURSE Introduction to Tajikistan GEOGRAPHY Tajikistan is located in Central Asia and is home to some of the highest mountains in the world, the Pamir Mountains. Tajikistan is surrounded by the neighboring countries of Uzbekistan in the northwest and west, Kyrgyzstan in the north and northeast, Afghanistan in the south and China in the east. Borders of modern Tajikistan are the result of the national policies of former Soviet leader Josef Stalin, who tried to delineate all ethnic groups by their territories, where their settlement was most compact. As a result, parts of the Tajikistan territory, in places, are surrounded by that of its neighbors, especially in the Ferghana Valley region. 1 The terrain includes high desert, foothills, valleys and a plateau that lies, on average, at an elevation of 3,000 (9000 feet) meters. Even the lowlands, which are located in the Fergana Valley in the far north and in the southwest, are well above sea level. In the Turkestan range, highest of the western chains, the maximum elevation is 5,510 meters (16, 000 feet). The highest elevations of this range are in the southeast, near the border with Kyrgyzstan. That region is dominated by the peaks of the Pamir-Alay mountain system, including two of the three highest elevations in the former Soviet Union: Khan Tengri (formerly Lenin Peak) 7,134 meters (21,402 ft) and Ismoil Somoni (formerly Communism Peak) 7,495 meters (22,485 ft). Several other peaks in the region also exceed 7,000 meters. The mountains contain numerous glaciers, the largest of which, the Fedchenko, covers more than 700 square kilometers and is the largest glacier in the world outside the Polar Regions. Because Tajikistan lies in an active seismic belt, severe earthquakes are common. Å Fedchenko glacier 2 View of the suburban park Romit The Fergana Valley, the most densely populated region in Central Asia, spreads across northern Tajikistan from Uzbekistan on the west to Kyrgyzstan on the east. This long valley, which lies between two mountain ranges, reaches its lowest elevation of 320 meters at Khujand on the Syrdariya. Rivers bring rich soil deposits into the Fergana Valley from the surrounding mountains, creating a series of fertile oases that have long been prized for agriculture. The general area of the country is approximately 143,100 square kilometers. CLIMATE In general, Tajikistan's climate is continental, subtropical, and semi-arid, with some desert areas. However, the climate changes drastically according to elevation. The Fergana Valley and other lowlands are shielded by mountains from arctic air masses, but temperatures in that region still drop below freezing for more than 100 days a year. In the subtropical southwestern lowlands, which have the highest average temperatures, the climate is arid, although some sections now are irrigated for farming. At Tajikistan's lower elevations, the average temperature range is 23° to 30° C in July and -1° to 3°C in January. In the eastern Pamirs, the average July temperature is 5° to 10°C, and the average January temperature is -15° to -20°C. The average annual precipitation for most of the republic ranges between 700 and 1,600 millimeters. The heaviest precipitation falls at the Fedchenko Glacier, which averages 2,236 millimeters per year, and the lightest is in the eastern Pamirs, which average less than 100 millimeters per year. Most precipitation occurs in the winter and spring. ECONOMY Industry in Tajikistan consists, in sum, of one large aluminum smelter, hydroelectric power installations and a number of small plants engaged in light industry and food processing. Virtually all need to be upgraded and modernized. Tajikistan's aluminum plant, the Tursunzade Aluminum Smelter (TADAZ), built in 1975 and located in Tajikistan because of access to cheap electric power, is the third-largest in the world, with a capacity of 517,000 tons a year. In 2001, it operated at 25% capacity (which produced 113,000 tons), down from 86.5% capacity in 1990 (producing 450,000 tons, the closest it has come to full capacity utilization.) The $210 million earned in export revenues constituted 53% of total export receipts for the year. In 2002, TADAZ's output increased to 307,000 tons, and plans are for it to reach 346.000 tons annual output by 2005. Almost all of its output is exported, though there are small downstream cable and foil operations. The plant directly employs 12,000 to 14,000, and indirectly supports a community of 100,000. The government announced its intention to sell shares in TADAZ, retaining a majority control. However, the plant has accumulated a large external debt, probably over $100 million, lessening its attractiveness to outside investors. In early 2003, the IMF somewhat uncharacteristically advised against privatization of either TADAZ or the country's hydroelectric facilities. 3 Tajikistan is the world's third-largest producer of hydroelectric power, behind the United States and Russia. However, TADAZ uses about 40% of the country's electricity production, and Tajikistan has the lowest electricity usage rates among the former Soviet counties, enough for only a few hours a day of electricity in the winter. Like elsewhere in the developing world, most successful industries include food for sale, (served most of the time in the yard of the house where it is cooked, with guests sometimes going into rooms during winter), and the home based manufacture of clothing and household items. Å A staple of the diet – shashlyk – which is the highlight of the day during lunch Å Manty – a large ravioli is the result of Chinese influence centuries ago One of the most taxing industries is cotton. It uses child labor, forced labor and is backbreaking harvesting by hand. POPULATION According to the 1989 census, Tajikistan's population was overwhelmingly young and 50.3 percent female. People under age thirty made up 75 percent of the population; people under age fifteen were 47 percent of the total. 4 Å Village in Varzob district In the last two decades of the Soviet era, Tajikistan had the highest birth rate of any Soviet republic. The average family size in the republic, according to the 1989 census, was 6.1 people, the largest in the Soviet Union. The average Tajik woman gave birth to between seven and nine children. The average annual population growth rate for rural Tajikistan in the 1970s and 1980s was higher than the rate for urban areas. The two main causes of Tajikistan's growth pattern were the high value placed by society on large families and the virtual absence of birth control, especially in rural areas, where the majority of the population lived. Women under the age of twenty gave birth to 5.1 percent of the babies born in Tajikistan in 1989, and a relatively high proportion of women continued to have children late into their child-bearing years. According to the 1989 census, 2 percent of all the babies born in Tajikistan were born to women between the ages of forty and forty-four; 81 percent of those babies had been preceded by at least six other children. In the late 1980s, the Soviet government reacted to the high birth rate by encouraging family planning. The plan failed because of poor promotion, inadequate birth control methods, and the Tajiks' traditional admiration for large families and opposition to birth control. In rural areas, the inadequacies of health care and the reluctance of women to undergo gynecological examinations contributed to the failure of family planning prior to independence. After independence, living conditions deteriorated rapidly and the economy has remained sluggish. These conditions force family planning to take place, especially in urban areas. RELIGION Islam, the predominant religion of all of Central Asia, was brought to the region by Arabs in the seventh century. Since that time, Islam has become an integral part of Tajik culture. Although Soviet efforts to secularize society were largely successful, the post-Soviet era has seen a marked increase in religious practice. The majority of Tajikistan's Muslims adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam, and a smaller group belongs to the Shi’a branch of that faith. Among other religions, the Russian Orthodox faith is the most widely practiced, although the Russian community shrank significantly in the early 1990s. Some other small Christian groups now enjoy relative freedom of worship. There is also a small Jewish community. The vast majority of the non-Tajik population of Tajikistan is composed of people who were also historically Sunni Muslims (Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tatars, and Turkmen). The next largest religious community is presumably Russian Orthodox, the historical faith of many Ukrainians as well as Russians. A cathedral in Dushanbe, St. 5 Nicholas, serves the Orthodox community. By the end of the Soviet era, Tajikistan was also home to small numbers of people belonging to other Christian denominations, including Roman Catholics (most of who were German), Seventh-Day Adventists, and Baptists. There was also a small Armenian minority, most of whose members belonged historically to the Armenian Apostolic (Gregorian) Church. Other religious groups included small numbers of Jews and Bahais. The number of adherents to these minority religions probably decreased sharply in the 1990s because of the wave of emigration from Tajikistan in the early independence period. Independence saw a rise of fundamentalism and radical Islam of the Wahhabi faction. Å Interior of the new mosque in Panjakent HISTORY Scientists have found primitive human settlements in Tajikistan that date back 12,000 years. People fished, hunted, and grew crops. Cities were formed and, as commerce grew, the Great Silk Road came into existence, bringing wealth and prosperity to many cities in Tajikistan.