TAJIKISTAN | Ethnicity, Religion, History, & Facts

all right tajikistan back in central

asia so central asia is a very

complicated place and tajikistan is kind

of one of those countries that has a bit

of an identity crisis during ussr times

it was like haha it's that persian guy

and to their closest relatives it was

like

look it's that russian guy and to

russians it was like oh hey it's our

persian russian guy but no matter where

they fit they know that they are the

link to the silk road the edge of

empires and the pearl of the palmiers

but to me i call it the next episode

tajikistan

it's time to learn geography now hey

everybody i'm your host barbs from get

geography now merchant geographynow.com

it's not selling out if it's your brand

anywhere so some countries link

continents others link cultural regions

and some countries had their links

destroyed by cyclone 600 years ago the

point is there's a lot of connector

countries and very few in this world can

claim that title like tajikistan they

are literally the center of the ironic

turkic sino and indo-aryan worlds and

they also sometimes speak russian we'll

get to that stuff later but first the

map

[Music]

so in ancient times tajikistan went by

many names and empires they were part of

aryana bactria the acamet empire but

most tajiks today will probably

attribute this samina dynasty as being

the key era that gave them their

distinct tajik identity this guy ismail

samani considered the father of the

nation since then tajikistan let alone

the entirety of central asia has gone

through a lot of transition and

complicated administrative restructuring

really russia seriously you did that

what what is this what you we all know

that you still love me please give us

some money just take it just go yeah

that's uh that's kind of a story for

another time but any case here's the

motion graphic first of all the country

is landmarked located in central asia

surrounded by four other countries

including china to the east which means

tajikistan has a three-hour time zone

jump as china follows only one time zone

of utc plus eight tajikistan also has

three exclaves located within two of

their neighbors in kyrgyzstan you find

this small guy lolazor it's uninhabited

and you have

in uzbekistan you have sarvan it's also

important to note that even though the

exclave in kyrgyzstan belongs to

uzbekistan it's 99 inhabited by tajiks

so yeah that makes things interesting at

the confluence of the varzo and khofar

nihon rivers lies the capital and

largest city dushanbe which means monday

most likely derived from the monday

market that the city grew from in soviet

years it was known as talinabad but then

it changed its name back in 1961. here

you can obviously find the largest and

busiest airport dushanbe international

whereas the second largest city hujand

in the north holds the second largest

airport furugohi

hujand international the country is made

up of four provinces or viloyat they are

suggest catalon the cornu barakshan

autonomous province and this one in the

middle was formerly known as karutegen

but since the tajik civil war the name

was changed to the districts under

central government jurisdiction or

republic subordination depending on how

you translate it i'm not even joking

that's what they are called cornu

barakshan is the largest province making

up about 45 of the country's landmass

yet only about three percent of the

population lives there the province is

autonomous and if you want to visit you

will need to obtain a special permit

from dushanbe this area was once

disputed with china as they laid claim

to nearly all the pamir region that is

until the late 90s and 2010s when all

disputes were settled and china

relinquished about 96 of their claims in

return for exchanging two slots of land

on each side tajikistan got these two

the valley of the markansu river and

karazoke mountain where china got these

two areas totaling about 520 square

miles on the north and center slopes of

the sarikol range in addition they

finally opened up the karasu checkpoint

in 2004 officially marking the border

between the two finally tajikistan is

home to a unique network of roadways

that try their best to interconnect each

district but of course the heavy

mountainous terrain always has been

somewhat challenging for one the entire

northern part of the country across the

zedochan mountains was completely

inaccessible for the longest time by

highway before people would have to

travel to uzbekistan and hook around the

range in order to arrive into hujon now

however they have the m-34 highway with

the newly built anzob tunnel about five

kilometers long this tunnel saves around

four to six hours of driving and gives

them access to the suv province and

hujan in addition the m41 highway is

probably the most famous one that

traverses the pamir mountains and has

been existing for millennia as part of

the ancient silk road yeah the unzob

tunnel is no joke it's known as the

tunnel of death or the world's most

dangerous tunnel anytime it's important

to note that the tajikistan borders you

see today are essentially the byproduct

of whatever russia allotted to them post

ussr breakup if you ask tajikis what

they really think would be maybe an

appropriate homeland for the tajiks they

might refer to the greater hurosan

horison region this is a historical

region dating back to the sasanian

empire encapsulating lands between

afghanistan southern uzbekistan as far

as northeastern iran yet to this day

tajiks kind of look at southern

uzbekistan and they're kind of like dude

somarchand and buhari are basically

tajik there's so many of them there and

you know it yeah well there's lots of

uzbeks and sought so what's your point

i'm just saying i'm just saying

go to geography i'll market

geographynow.com tajikistan is loaded

with tons of shockingly wonderful places

of interest tons of historical

attractions tajikistan does not

disappoint to explain more here's

geography and patreon patron yachon to

explain hey geograpeeps tajikistan is a

very beautiful country and if you do end

up visiting it in your lifetime which i

highly recommend you to do then please

make sure to check out the following

places which include places such as the

fossilized dinosaur footprints in

shuriken the unesco world heritage site

in sarasam the ancient punja can so many

fortresses like these but the most

famous ones are probably being these two

at the bottom there's a mausoleum which

is dedicated to mirzad ali hamdani there

is a tomb of rudaki then there's a

statue of rudolph then there's also a

park of rudolph it's a short black

observatory is a wall that's been

dedicated to the great tajik writers and

national museum of antiques the national

library of tajikistan the dushanbe opera

house the dushambe flagpole and most

importantly when it comes to jigsaw

remember the bazaars there's heaps of

bazaars like these in tajikistan the

country is full of beautiful amazing

fascinating naturally astonishing places

such as the lake iskandarkul the lake

karakul and of course the kairakum

reservoir thanks geograpeeps thanks man

and thanks for also being a patreon

patron it's weird i don't really promote

patreon that much on this channel i

don't know maybe i should join patreon

there's like fun behind the scenes stuff

there yay patreon in any case speaking

of amazing sites tajikistan is loaded

with amazing natural ones which brings

us to

[Music]

now when it comes to landscapes few

places match what tajikistan has to

offer they may not have been blessed

with the ocean with what they lack in

sea access they gain in sky access huh

mountains there's a lot ah here's the

motion graphic first of all the country

is 93 mountainous the third most

mountainous country in the world after

bhutan and nepal the two main ranges

being the pamir and the alai ranges

these mountains are of course caused by

the convergence of the indian plate

thrusting into the eurasian plate

creating an entire complicated network

of mini riffs fissures and fault lines

mostly in the pamir mountains the

largest being the altai davas karakorum

and fault mines this in return makes

tajikistan susceptible to regular

earthquake activity and of course within

these mountains you can find the tallest

peak ismail simoni peak just to skip

away from here you can find the

fedchenko glacier the largest non-polar

glacier in the world they have two

lowlands separated by mountains in the

north and south the panj river lowlands

in the southwest and the fergana valley

in the north which is the most fertile

part of the country these valleys are

fed by the countless snowmelt river

runoff from the mountains it is said

that there are over 900 rivers in the

country at least 10 kilometers or longer

the longest one though would be the

vasht river that traverses northeast to

southwest on this river you can find the

nurak dam the second tallest in the

world which creates the nurik reservoir

all the way up in the north you also

find the karaikum reservoir with another

hydroelectric plant in fact almost all

the power in tajikistan is provided by

hydroelectric sources however the

largest inland body of water is actually

karakul lake found in an impact crater

in the pamir mountains yes geologists

speculate that this is an impact crater

finally only about three percent of the

country is forested as they have lost

much of it in the past century due to

industrial activity crazy beautiful

stuff right basically what you'll get

with tajikistan's land if visiting will

most likely be a disneying panorama of

dry rocky yet snow-capped mountains that

milton to narrow spotty green river

valleys below thanks geograpeep tristan

for uh that footage he did a cool bike

trip across the palmers a few years ago

so yeah clearly you can tell i'm not

gonna lie tajikistan is widely noted for

its natural wonders i mean you have

things like hoja moomin butchered that

sorry you have the 40 girls rock pillars

there's like a legend but about 40 girls

that turned into stone pillars to avoid

the mongols attacking whatever there's a

lot of legends here and speaking of

legends this is usually the part where i

take my triple shot espresso break and

then noah comes to fill in for the rest

of the segment but he's out of town

visiting family for the holidays so uh

i'll cover cause you know i made this

show i can cover for any segment now

economically tajikistan is often ranked

as the poorest of all the former soviet

republics about a quarter of its entire

gdp is derived from remittance money

sent over from abroad it's estimated

about one in seven men live and work in

another country mostly russia internet

is also expensive and often spotty as

they don't have a national network so

they usually just buy it from outside

providers and then sell it back to the

locals to this day they are still

heavily dependent on their agrarian and

mineral mining sectors aluminum being

their largest element the state-owned

tajikistan aluminum company is the only

large-scale production enterprise in the

mining sector now all things considered

that being said there is a heavily

active black market in tajikistan mostly

in the opioid sector it's often said

that the pamir highway is nicknamed the

heroin highway as much of the narcotic

is brought in through afghanistan whoa

hold on a second i'm just growing

poppies here so you guys can do whatever

you want to do with it hey you're not

getting any poppies all right i know you

want it but you're not going to get it

so you go back down i love you

you could be a little drug dealer if you

want to speaking of plant life there's

another living thing in afghanistan the

animals and with that here's gary harlow

time to be gary harlow

gary harlow here now tajikistan might

have only three percent forest coverage

but you don't need lots of trees to have

animals the country has about 20

national nature reserves in parks the

largest and most famous being tajik

national park classified as a unesco

heritage site only one fish lives in

lake caracal the stone lodge in the

steep hills you can find wild boars the

turkistan lakes air mines talai hares

juniper walls and numerous wild ram and

sheep species and if you're lucky enough

you might spot the incredibly rare snow

leopard in the premier mountains there's

only about 300 of them left or in the

south davaos region you might find the

rare tajik brown bear escarnical lake is

one of the best hot spots for birds many

of the birds sound like this

there's too many to mention but here is

a scrolling list of all the types of

birds that you can find in chajica stand

himalayan snow [ __ ] in any case the

national animal of tajikistan actually

no longer lives here and it's the

caspian tiger unfortunately they were

hunted down in the 20th century as they

were seen as a threat to farmers so they

kind of killed off their national animal

however dna tests revealed it could be

the same species as the siberian or emir

tiger so maybe it's not extinct well

that's it for me

off i go mates thank you gary so there

you go the land the resources the

industry that produces said resources

the wildlife so that means there's only

one part left to discuss in this segment

i can't do it here's a compilation of

noah doing it food boom the food thank

you noah can't wait to have you back

tajik food it's quite an underrated

cuisine to talk about the food here's

one of you guys the tajik geograpeeps

nigina to explain take it away salaam

alaikum and hi guys i am so happy to

tell you about the traditional tajik

foods that we have the very first one

would be nom a tajik style flat bread it

will be prepared in an oven called

tandir we also have the so called mantri

the manti are steamed dumpling krut

which is a snack in tajikistan it will

be prepared from a thickened salty

yogurt called sushma you can eat them

like savory heart candy there are also

many other traditional foods in

tajikistan one of which is the guru top

which is also a national dish or the

shurpa which is a very

rich soup the most famous dish and the

king of the table would be the plov but

depending on the region where it's from

people will add other ingredients there

is also huge tea culture in tajikistan

we love to drink our green tea together

with different kinds of nuts and fruits

and also dried fruits shir choi is a

milk tea with butter we invite you to

see our incredible scenery and beautiful

nature try our delicious food and

experience the friendliness and

hospitality of tajiks thanks nigina oh

my goodness they made a salad out of

bread i [ __ ] love carbs i don't care

what people say when they're all like

ooh curds are bad for you i just eat

more out of spite kirby barbie oh yeah

and they are obsessed with melons they

even have a holiday dedicated to it and

the president even opened up a tea house

building shaped like one we'll discuss

more about the president in the next

segment which by the way is coming up

right now

so what exactly is a tajik person or

even just a person from tajikistan that

might not even actually be ethnically

tajik well that question has quite a

number of nuances depending on whom you

ask but essentially it boils down to a

group of people with lots of history

here are some of you guys explaining

initially central asia had predominantly

been settled by the persian speaking

people for thousands of years waves and

waves on nomadic migrations were coming

in from north and northeast asia most of

them were turkic were the only exception

being the mongols in the 13th century in

the mid-1800s the russians come in from

the west but by the time they came in

the region became so heavily took a

persian mix that it was nearly

impossible to draw a clear line to

separate turkey from persian worlds

stalin makes four out of five republics

turkey and only one persian tajikistan

being attached means to be a muslim with

a persian culture and with great russian

influence but despite all this mixed

culture i'm proud of being tajiki and i

really like it for me being tragic means

to live with some strange stereotypes

and but i'm feeling home it always had

strong ties to the persian history but

also the soviet influence which made it

less conservative also we are quite a

proud nation and uh and the appearance

is quite an important thing there is a

russian saying that

the east is a delicate matter which

means that all those traditions and

habits and ways of life

in central asia are very symbolic and

with many hidden meetings thank you in

any case statistically here's how the

country breaks down motion graphic time

the country has a population of about 10

million people and has the fastest

growing population in central asia

averaging at about 2.4 annually there

are also more tajiks in diaspora than in

tajikistan somewhere around 11 to 13

million in afghanistan alone at

somewhere around 85 percent the country

is primarily made up of ethnic tajiks

however keep in mind usually minority

groups like the pamiris and yagnobi

people sometimes get lumped into the

tajik category as they are

ethnolinguistically related after that

at about 13 the next largest community

are uzbeks specifically sogdy sogden

uzbeks that live in the north part of

the country by uzbekistan and finally

the last remaining two percent are made

up of other people groups mostly

russians kirkis turkmens and so on

there's even a few koreans in there

believe it or not they use the somonia

as their currency which by the way is

one of the only few currencies that

comes in a denomination of three for

coins or banknotes they use the types c

and i plug outlets and they drive on the

right side of the road language-wise

obviously tajik is the official language

of tajikistan the language is pretty

much intelligible to the other

persian-based languages like farsi in

iran and dari spoken in afghanistan they

can all understand each other the

biggest difference is that it is one of

the only two ironic languages written in

the cyrillic alphabet rather than the

arabic one

that's me i got another mention in an

episode this time it's not for

controversy

otherwise the only other difference

between the three is that there are

slight accents and differences in

loanwords from outside languages other

than that russian is the secondary

inter-ethnic language spoken here let me

go figure russian is useful in this part

of the world it's also important to note

though that the pamiris are kind of like

a completely separate thing their

languages are less intelligible and they

have their own unique customs many of

which are inspired by zoroastrianism and

today they are actually predominantly

shia as opposed to the sunni majority

which brings us to religion faith-wise

the vast majority at about 98 of the

country identifies as muslim mostly in

the sunni branch hanafi school of

jurisprudence the rest are mostly

christian mostly russian orthodox now it

may be a muslim majority country however

here things are a little different from

other quote unquote muslim nations i

mean besides the fact that you'll

probably see people drinking alcohol and

eating pork products the government also

has imposed a lot of laws that they

claim maintain tradition over

non-traditional practices basically even

though the country is categorically

secular and allows freedom of religion

the government has heavy involvement in

anything religion based especially islam

their reasoning being think of it when

you come from a culture that might

sometimes clash with what many might

consider arab-centric customs that

dominate much of the muslim world you're

probably going to get a country like

tajikistan for example the government

has a list of pre-approved topics for

imams to preach on in mosques attendance

to mosques and religious matters are

banned for children under 18 unless they

express interest the hajj or pilgrimage

to mecca is banned for anyone under 35.

hijabs let alone burqas or any other

islamic clothing are banned for women if

they want to dress modestly they usually

wear like a hair scarf and men are not

allowed to have thick beards as they are

usually affiliated with extremism even

arab islamic names were considered to be

banned even though the president kind of

has one himself

shut up their rationale behind this it's

it's kind of like this look iran

afghanistan i don't care if we

practically speak the same language i am

not getting lumped into all the drama

that you got into in the past few

decades

who do you think you are you're calling

me dramatic you literally had a civil

war and i have more real tajiks in my

country than you do yeah it gets a

little complicated when they get their

cousins involved anyway now hearing all

this you're probably thinking oh let me

guess the unlimited term president he

has all the power right yeah well

technically they have seven year terms

but every election cycle the president

overwhelmingly wins and any opponents if

any are squelched this guy emma mali

rahmon has been in power since 1994 his

pictures are everywhere on buildings

yeah it's a lot more complicated than

that though i mean it dates back to the

tajik civil war and the old president

guy we don't have time to discuss it but

basically post-soviet union collapse

equals internal dispute sometimes the

point is this is just tajikistan in the

past few decades but looking at the

grand scope of history tajikistan's

story has been through so much

transition hell fujian was basically the

furthest eastern greek settlement during

alexander the great's time even many

religions and religious movements

settled here hell there's even buddhist

statues in their museums dynasty after

empires have chiseled away at

tajikistan's story making it the nation

that it is today in any case that's

quite a bit to digest so let's burn off

those information calories by bringing

some sports into this video to talk

about that here's art with the sports

part

tajikistan this one is going to be an

interesting one for one tajiks love to

wrestle if two families have two boys

that are about the same age it's not

uncommon for them to make them battle it

out in a wrestling match to see who's

stronger for example if i was to take

tarchen here who happens to be my son

and have him battle out another son

that's about you whoever won was the

best oh yeah

no i do have a son too like if i took my

son and battle him out with somebody

else too that

all right let's move on the next segment

the national sport is gush takiri a form

of wrestling traditionally each district

had its own aloofta or best wrestler

that would compete for the village

otherwise much like their afghan cousins

bukashi is still played mostly in the

cooler mountainside areas the game

involves a bunch of men riding horses on

a field about 200 meters wide and

traditionally they would attempt to grab

and move a decapitated goat or calf

carcass into the goal area to score a

point as if it was like a soccer ball

that's weird i'm done

otherwise like most of the rest of the

world they love soccer or football their

first international win was in the afc

inaugural challenge cup against sri

lanka in 2006. prior to independence

they participated in the olympics under

the ussr in which these four

tajikistan-born athletes won medals

however post-independence since 2008

these four athletes have successfully

won medals for the country in wrestling

judo and boxing and their only gold

medal to this day is dilshad nazarov in

hammer throw so there you go that's a

little bit inside on the athletic side

of tajikistan i'm so proud of you my son

wait where's my other son where'd he go

mikhail thank you art fun fact there's

references to buskashi in rambo 3 and

the secret life of walter mitty and

speaking of film and culture there's

only one person who can cover it ever so

gracefully in these episodes that would

be mrs random hannah take it away

what's up guys i'm back and you can get

a random manager at geographynow.com

check out my really cool model forward

thinking everyone so tajikistan is kind

of a cultural anomaly it's kind of like

the child between the persian world and

russia nonetheless after independence

tajikistan went through an extended

period of trying to reclaim its tajik

identity apart from the sovietized one

for example they became the first

post-soviet country to abandon soviet

thai's surnames the president even did

it to himself historically tajikistan

was home to some of the most notable

persian poets like these guys there are

even statues of them here everywhere

you'll see a wide contrast of

traditional tajik colorful or geometric

tile pattern architecture juxtaposed to

more blocky soviet utilitarian unit

structures and if you're lucky enough to

pass by pamiris have an entirely unique

style of house called the chead with

layered angled square roots bulk wood

carving panels called kawaroki have been

around forever this guy being one of the

most famous contemporary tajik wood

carvers and speaking of art if you want

to learn more about film and the culture

of tajikistan check out my youtube

channel called random hannah i changed

it from filmography now random hannah

hannah has a spin-off otherwise

traditional clothing usually follows the

zardusi stitching technique similar to

other types in central asia that has a

bosma or double-sided stitch you might

see a lot of people mostly in the older

generations with gold teeth during the

soviet times it was seen as a status

symbol and it was a cheap procedure

another tradition tajikistan is known

for eyebrow fashion for a while unibrows

were considered attractive amongst women

and in some places still are however

today regardless of having a unibrow or

not tajik women still like to heavily

emphasize their brows speaking of which

marriage culture in tajikistan is pretty

intense too here are two of you guys the

tajik subscribers explaining hi guys my

name is ali and my name is

we want to tell you some interesting

facts about tajik wedding traditions

first of all we have to say that there

is always somebody who is out of the

rules or exception that is why whatever

we say refers to 90 of all tags of

course sometimes it's different but

usually if you're going to marry you're

not the one who looks for a partner your

parents your family friends the elders

will find you a match and if they agree

with this match you cannot say no yes

yes it's your life but not your decision

no wedding could take place without the

presentation of kalim ransom for the

bride after that the newlyweds make

their commitment before an imam which is

called the nikah ceremony this seals the

marriage and only then they are allowed

to be together couples life together in

the morning and during five six months

the bride has to get out before everyone

else in the family cook breakfast do

some housework and greet everyone she

sees this during this period she has to

be already pregnant if not gossip starts

all around the family after having a

baby and during some five six years

survive should serve her husband's

parents in order to get recognition or

make a good name and only after that

they can let them to be together to live

in their own house but this happens not

all the time sometimes they live with

their parents still death and all these

are unspoken laws

ah weddings i remember mine yeah ian

danced too my mind's telling me no it

was a beautiful day in a great night

i might leave that in oh really oh no

well one thing you can find a lot of at

weddings is music which i guess

unfortunately brings us to the worst

segment on this show oh man yeah it's

mine

[Music]

all right guys i'm a key ethiopian can i

my own like little special effect intro

now that i'm a ethiopian sure why not

yeah

i'm a pickle now yeah

all right music of tajikistan all right

so tajikistan basically has three

different main types of folk music the

central the north and the mountains and

of course these styles are accompanied

by numerous instruments native to

central asia such as the dutar the

rhubarb the gijak the karmai the surinai

and the toblock trunk actually

originated in northern india but

whatever fun fact carny horns were

originally used for battles as a signal

now you can hear them almost anywhere on

the weekend for wedding announcements in

tajikistan you can literally crash into

any wedding they are usually open invite

to the community i mean don't be creepy

but like jump in congratulations on

community some of the most notable

styles of music from tajikistan come

from the premier mountain uh

specifically falak music it uses

religious mythical themes of love and

suffering derived from persian poetry it

is usually played in like a descending

hexachord scale kind of deal and if

you're those that you want to know it's

a hex chord scale it's got six notes

boom hex meaning six and finally in a

more contemporary sense tag music today

is more modern pop oriented using

electronic beats here is a list of

notable tajik musicians you guys

suggested we mentioned every single one

of you wanted us to mention monitia who

performed at eurovision also this dude

who won the central asia's got talent

all you tajiks hell yeah

also got to give a shout out to the

bamparam awesome tajik full croc band uh

they've been around since 1993. that's

it for me i'm keith hey look you could

get a keith shirt buy keys straight at

geographynow.com it's cool you can get

shredded like me and paul even though

i've bulked up some thank you keith what

are you doing

thank you keith tajikistan has gone

through so much in history from outside

forces now let's see how they interact

with those outside forces shall we

so by now you can kind of obviously tell

that tajikistan is being pulled by so

many parts of the world the ironic world

the russian world the turkic world at

some point you have to imagine that

they're probably like

nonetheless they still have their close

click and they know how to make friends

time for the motion graphic india has

been a close friend for decades as

tajikistan was the site of india's first

overseas air base at farco later on they

would agree to jointly share the ainee

air base as well india also does great

business and gives aid to them in times

of need in that regard after the border

dispute conflict china has actually

become way more invested and surpassed

russia as being tajikistan's largest

import partner at over 40 percent of

course russia's relationship is still

close most tajiks abroad live in russia

and depend on them for remittance money

they've agreed to lease out four army

camps and an air base to russians in

tajikistan in return for training tajik

soldiers and selling military equipment

to them for super cheap then we get to

their actual cousins iran and

afghanistan afghanistan has always felt

close to tajikistan no matter what time

period they've been in i mean they were

joint units during the samanid gaznavid

and timurid dynasties so it's not much

of a question the only issue is that

recent years with all the drama with al

qaeda has put a strain on their

relationship and tajikistan deliberately

chose to distance themselves for the

sake of not looking compliant with the

extremist ideologies for iran after the

breakup of the ussr they swept in

immediately and were like hey old cousin

let's remind you of your persian

heritage i'll build you some new mosques

i'll invite you over i'll share my tv

shows magazines and books with you

you'll be back to being persian no time

the issue is though the two countries do

still have some stark contrasts the

biggest one being obviously that iran is

mostly shia with a theocracy whereas

tajikistan is mostly sunni and secular

nonetheless no matter how messy things

get at the very least culturally the

persian cousins will always get each

other when i asked you guys who the best

friend of tajikistan was though

surprisingly i actually didn't expect

this but most of you said uzbekistan

even though they are turkic and

tajikistan's persian nonetheless they

share a deep bond now granted recently

there was a little tension with the

previous uzbek president but a lot of

suspicions and accusations against

tajikistan that caused the two to fall

apart diplomatically but after he died

the new president promised to remove all

the tensions and renew relationships

both our former ussr nations both speak

russian they both at least to some

degree mostly identify as muslim they

both share so many cultural traits

business is huge between them many

people intermarry between the two

countries and overall their turkic

neighbors seem to have made the best

impression on them which says something

when you come from two completely

different ethnic linguistic groups in

conclusion tajikistan is kind of like

the lone wolf of the former ussr

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okay maybe one of but the point is they

have a very distinct thing going on

locked away in the mountains and they

truly are kind of a story of historical

fusion packed into one place stay tuned

tanzania is coming up next love that

place

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you