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GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF TAJIKISTAN

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8

Jun

Tugai Forests: Riparian Lifelines of the Vakhsh and Amu Darya

Along the banks of Central Asia’s great rivers, there is a forest that clings to water. It is not alpine spruce or mountain juniper but tugai, a riparian woodland woven from willows, poplars, reeds, and tamarisks. In Tajikistan, fragments of tugai forests remain along the Vakhsh and the Amu Darya, stretching like green ribbons through…
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5

Jun

Sacred Mountains: Spiritual Geographies of Tajikistan

The mountains of Tajikistan rise like walls and altars at once. In the early light, their ridges catch fire before the valleys wake, and their shadows stretch like fingers across rivers and fields. For centuries, people living in their folds have treated certain peaks not only as physical landmarks but as sacred presences: places where…
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4

May

Remoteness & Connectivity: Mountains in Motion

In the Pamirs, remoteness is not absence- it is a state of motion. The roads twist through high passes, snow closes them in winter, avalanches block them in spring, and landslides rearrange them without warning. Villagers speak of when a fellow from Rushon returned after five years and gasped: “The road turned!” It seems hyperbole,…
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13

Apr

The Yaghnob Valley: A Cultural and Ecological Enclave

To enter the Yaghnob Valley is to step sideways in both space and time. The road narrows into a dirt track, winding along the turquoise Yaghnob River as cliffs rise steeply on both sides. Occasional suspension bridges sway above the current, linking clusters of stone houses perched on alluvial terraces. At dawn, mist lingers over…
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5

Mar

Urban Gardens in Dushanbe: Green Between Concrete

In the heat of midday, among the narrow alleys of Dushanbe’s old districts, small gardens push through cracks in pavement and curling edges of walls. Tomato vines climb trellises made from broomsticks. Basil and mint grow in buckets. In tiny patches between apartments, green patches flourish as unexpected reprieves from concrete. These urban gardens are…
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1

Mar

Pastoral Routes: Herders and Seasonal Mobility

The high Pamirs open in wide silence. Valleys stretch upward toward passes, where wind carries dust and snow. Paths cut into slopes, barely visible from a distance, mark the movement of herds and families. These pastoral routes are not only trails of animals and people but geographies of mobility, tradition, and survival. To follow them…
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21

Feb

Roads and Passes: Human Traces in High Mountains

At the top of a mountain pass, the air thins until every breath feels like effort. The road unwinds beneath you in tight, improbable switchbacks, carved into slopes where rivers tumble a thousand meters below. Trucks grow small like toys on the hairpins. A prayer flag flutters against stone. There is a moment of silence…
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19

Dec

Rivers as Borders: The Panj and Beyond

The Panj River moves steadily, carving its way between steep cliffs of the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush. On one side is Tajikistan, on the other Afghanistan. The water itself seems indifferent, tumbling with a roar in spring and shimmering quietly in summer. Yet for those who live along its banks, the river is not…
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12

Dec

Hazards of Avalanches: Winter Geography of Risk

Snow piles deep in the high valleys. Ridges are capped in white. In winter, the silence presses on slopes until a crack, a slide, a roar breaks it. Avalanches are not myths here, but real events, part of the mountain’s language. In the Pamirs, winters carry risk- not just cold, but motion, ground collapse, snow…
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29

Oct

Syr Darya’s flows: water beyond Tajikistan

The Syr Darya is not born in Tajikistan, yet Tajik mountains breathe into it. Glaciers and streams from the Pamir and Tian Shan ranges feed tributaries that later merge into the great river. The river itself stretches more than 2,200 kilometers across Central Asia, through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, before seeping into the basin of…
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