-
Mountain Biodiversity Corridors: Linking Reserves
In Tajikistan’s mountains, biodiversity persists in unexpected places: along narrow valleys, across wind-swept ridges, and in the steep transition zones between ecological belts. These landscapes are more than isolated habitats- they form corridors that allow species to move, adapt, and survive in a changing environment. In recent years, scientists and conservationists have turned their attention…
-
Glacial Permafrost Thaw in the Pamirs
High in the Pamirs, where the landscape folds into sharp ridges and cirques, ice is not confined to glaciers alone. Much of it lies hidden within the ground, frozen into the soil and rock. This is permafrost: a perennially frozen ground that has shaped Pamiri landscapes for millennia. Now, under a warming climate, that frozen…
-
Earthquake Memories: Oral Histories of Tremors
The earth moves quietly at first, almost imperceptibly. A low vibration, a shudder through walls and ground, then the sudden sway that makes people step into doorways or rush outside. In Tajikistan, earthquakes are part of life in a seismically active landscape where mountain-building and faulting shape not only geology but memory. For many communities,…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Zorkul Reserve: High-Altitude Borders & Biological Thresholds
Above 4,100 meters, the air thins. The sun feels distant. At the edge of change lies Zorkul, a glacial lake perched on the Tajik–Afghan border, held in place by steep ridges and ancient ice. The Zorkul Reserve stretches across this boundary, a place where rivers begin, skies widen, and life clings in delicate communities. To…
-
Climate and Glaciers: Melting Heights
High above the valleys, the mountains gleam white, their glaciers stretching across ridges like frozen rivers. From afar they seem eternal, a steady crown of ice feeding the rivers below. Up close, they are moving, groaning, shrinking. In Tajikistan’s Pamirs and Alay ranges, glaciers cover thousands of square kilometers, storing the water that sustains life…
Search
Archive
- October 2023
- December 2020
- November 2020
- September 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- December 2019
- October 2019
- August 2019
- June 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- December 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- December 2017
- October 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- February 2016
Gallery
