If you are a wealthy person living in Tajikistan, it means that either (1) you’re a governmental official, or (2) you’re a former governmental official, or (3) you’re a businessman who avoids paying taxes, or (4) you’re an entertainment star, or (5) you’re a drug-smuggler. If you’re not a governmental official and you are wealthy, it means you have krisha (”a roof”, or patron from amongst the governmental officials).

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Aisha saysthat it's a nice time because “Tajik people seem to gain energy after the hardships of winter”:

In Tajik language Navruz means “New Day” and the 21st of March is also a kind of New Year eve. This year, the president came to Khujand and all people were walking in the streets and parks, taking boats on the river, eating ice-cream and watching street performers. Women wore national satin spring-colored dresses and friends and families got together to make sumanak — a sweet paste made from wheat.

During the last six days Tajik broadcast media were covering only Navruz celebrations attended by higher officials in different parts of the country. Tojvar comments that it is too hard to see one and the same face on TV all the time [tj]:

If a foreigner watches Navruz on Tajik television, he would think that it is either a president's birthday or his pre-election campaign.

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Neweurasia reports that Barki Tojik – the country's electricity monopolist – promises to solve the problem with energy by the end of this month. However, the problem with electricity is being solved naturally - a warmer season has come and now there is enough water to move the turbines and generate electricity on hydropower stations.

However, this does not ease the social stress, because the food crisis seems to be harder to overcome. (more…)

“Currently, most of the population in rural areas is supplied with electricity only 1,5 hour a day. In Dushanbe, the population is having electricity from 5 to 10 o'clock in the morning and then from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Beyond these time limits, people have no electricity and, therefore, no heating, no chance to cook etc. Most of the enterprises have been closed down and employees were forced to go on unscheduled and unpaid leave”, neweurasia reports..

Ravshan blames the government for poor management in the energy sector and absurd human resource management [ru]. Meanwhile, the introduced schedule of harsh electricity cut-offs is not fairly observed even in Dushanbe:

According to the schedule, the population should have electricity ten hours a day, but very they often turn on the electricity one hour later and cut it off one hour earlier. Basically, people have only 8 hours of access to electricity a day… They say nothing about the fact that the Minister of Energy and Industry graduated from the agricultural university and has no idea on how to manage the energy sector. Moreover, he never worked in this sphere. They also don't tell us that in emergency situation the electricity is being sold out to other countries. They simply say nothing about the most important things…

Ian at Beyond the river links wonders whether or not the general population should lose its patience with the leadership, like this anonymous lawyer from the Eurasianet's report has:

“We have double standards in our society. We see a number of new construction sites in Dushanbe, five-star hotels … And we see fancy cars and homes in the city. Everybody knows who these things belong to. These ‘masters of life’ control the economy, but they are deaf to the people’s cries. In the spring we will be facing another serious threat – dirty water from taps. And somebody will be appealing again for international assistance. It happens time and again.”

Indeed, the Tajikistan's authorities officially admitted their inability to cope with the energy crisis by appealing to international community for aid. Our leadership is certainly not the best one but - ironically - we'll always be looking back at our southern neighbor, Afghanistan, not wanting to repeat its fate. This is the behavioral model of many post-Soviet nations - “the fear of the worse” blocks protest potential and the notion of stability is being used to cover stagnation. Apparently, the population will not lose its patience for a long time, as it still remembers the war very well. But once it loses patience, there is a high possibility that Tajikistan can repeat the fate of Afghanistan, which is the least desired for everybody.

More than that, the energy crisis is still here and gets even worse day after day, says kellyinthemountains. Apartments, schools, offices are still cold and dark. Low temperatures have forced people to wear outer clothing inside their offices and homes:

Temperatures in Tajikistan and elsewhere in Central Asia have dropped below -20 Celsius in some areas. Heavy snowfalls and avalanches have disrupted public transport in many cities and villages. Some bus drivers who are brave enough to go on the icy roads have been charging passengers twice the price for tickets.

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As distinct from the foreigners' indignation, it does not seem strange to most Tajiks, who think that it is good to have charlatans punished. There are about 5,000 people in Tajikistan (one against nearly 150 citizens) registered at the Center of folk medicine as “healers” — most of them are involved in sorcery and fortune-telling and make lots of money. (more…)

As usually, the person killed by the blast supposed to have no links to the bomb itself. If it happened one hour later, the number of victims would have been higher, mostly comprised by the participants of the Regional Meeting for Environmental Risk Reduction in Central Asia, organized by the European Commission. The event was moved to another venue, but already in the afternoon the participants - representatives of international organizations and higher state officials - got back to “Kohi Vahdat” after the police finished the on-site investigation. Some experts assume that the bomb could have been addressed to the governmental officials and, more likely, to Prime Minister Okil Okilov. (more…)

Another tourist, drysdales visited Hissar. He went to a museum and looked at old costumes, footwear, earthen wear and even the chain mail and sword of a warrior. There was a paved courtyard with many small, off shoot rooms. Some of the embroidery work was in interesting and colourful designs. The doors leading into the museum were wooden and carved with detail.

Dan and Audrey visited Khorog and they are telling us about their flight from Khorog to Dushanbe. In they post they have some good photos and a video with the first 30 seconds from the taxi and takeoff of the previous day’s flight and next 90 seconds are mid-air.

Also the past two weeks there were made some good shots by people who visited the country: TrekEarth (Saghirdasht pass) and babasteve who never gets tired of photographing.

The handicraftsmen say that the leather working is a very difficult and painstaking work. Process of a fell of one cow requires the effort of three men in ten days.

Meanwhile, the cultural life in tajik cities seems to be far less creative than the traditional arts legacy. A new author on Tajik-English blog neweurasia C offers some thoughts on the Tajik music scene. He thinks that people in Tajikistan are so isolated from big music events happening in the world that they are ready to go to local concerts even if they are fed up with them.

Whatever place you go you see the same faces on the stage as well in the auditorium. And it seems that faces that I see in the auditorium come not because they are extremely interested in the concert or in the group, they come because they are starving for cultural events.

In this sense, lack of public expertise may sometimes result in serious consequences in various areas, including environmental one. Economy of Tajikistan reports on the visit of the head of RAO Unified Energy System of Russia Anatoly Jubais who proposed to built a hydroelectric power station on the natural dam in Sarez lake. The author of the post is concerned that this initiative may lead to catastrophe in the whole region.

I heard about the ideas of building a hydroelectric power station in Sarez lake, but none of them were reasonable. This time the same thing happened. The Tajik Academy of Sciences represented by its head Ilolov said the proposal will be taken for consideration but no more than that.

Although the Tajik players then lost to Belgium yesterday, I want to extend my congratulations to this young team. Many people are surprised in US and ask questions like: Where is Tajikistan? Do they play soccer (football)?

And there are people overseas who know about this mysterious country:

I was in Tajikistan when they qualified, and none of my Tajikistani friends knew anything about it [the qualification]. Even the soccer fans knew nothing, though they could all comment in depth on the Russian and English leagues' news at the time. I'm very interested in knowing how this is often being received there.

The FIFA ranking seems off, too. Tajikistan has improved significantly since the civil war ended in 1997. They're just about at the point where they could contend for the “octagonal” in Asian WC qualifying. Of course, that in part is a commentary on how poor Asian soccer is.

Those who need details about this match, click here.

Two bloggers made a link to my post about Chinese construction workers and their hunger for turtles in Tajikistan. One came from Ian, our friend from Beyond the River , while the other is from Bonnie Boyd's great Foreign Policy blog. They even noticed a political implication in turtle eating.

I hesitate to draw any strong inferences from what amount to rumors and perhaps unfair stereotyping, but I do think there's a point to be made here: As China's influence in the region continues to rise, the Chinese could face a backlash if they don't tread very carefully.

Ben links to a post on the Russian website Webpark.ru with pictures of a crashed plane AN-24 with the logo of TajikAir on it. I don’t think that it's been a photoshop gig.

This is surprising, as I’ve never heard anything about this crash but it does not mean that there was no news about it in our local media. I guess the administration of Tajik Air will be upset to see the pictures of this plane spread on the Internet. They never reveal any information about Tajik Air planes flying somewhere in Africa rented by African companies. So, here is the evidence!

Madina at neweurasia and a dude at Delhi Planet discuss the new amendments made to Tajik law on media where Internet is going to be put under the control of the state.

Delhi Planet says:

Imagine being put behind bars just because you made a mistake in one of your articles published on the internet. This ruling is surely gonna give all the journalists and bloggers in tajikistan many sleepless nights.

Madina says:

Does this mean now that journalists will be prosecuted for the job they do? I hope not. Otherwise, Tajikistan will gradually take one of the first places in the world among the countries with the lowest level of freedom of speech and get the lowest human rights indicators which in its turn will result in the decrees of the investment flow as well as the overall image of the country.

The other widely discussed topic in the Tajik and Russian blogosphere was the execution of a Tajik and a Dagistani in Russia by neo-Nazis and the video they spread in the Internet. Probably this was the most discussed topic in the Internet about Tajikistan but I did not want to put it on the first place in this roundup.

According to Yandex, the Russian bloggers were extremely interested in this topic. The Tajik perspective on this issue was given at VatanWeb (rus). Those who can understand Russian and Tajik should go read a post with more than a hundred of comments.

And for sure, you should read my post about the execution and all the responses from different perspectives that it collected.

Jamiyat reports that Islam Karimov during the SCO summit raised concerns about huge hydropower projects that Tajikistan is going to realize with the help of Russia and Iran.

Karimov was straightforward and made it clear that water is life and that it is worth struggling for. I hope he is not planning to fight Tajikistan for water. The edited version of this post to be found at neweurasia. And BajaeNergy gives a good information about the rich water resources of Tajikistan.

The water and border issues between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan worsened bilateral relations in all spheres. I think the problem that Joshua Kucera had while obtaining a Tajik visa in Tashkent is somehow related to this…

All the various times I had to visit the consulate, wait for a couple of hours, only to be told to come back the next day, or that I had filled out a certain form wrong. The consulate was a terrible scene. Every day there were between 20 and 50 people waiting for visas, and there was no line and no organization.

Recommendations: Avoid getting a Tajik visa in Tashkent.

Probably, Andrea Dall'Olio gives the best explanation about what is happening in the private sector now and what the problems are. He reports on business environment in Tajikistan and particularly on the recent IFC report Business Environment in Tajikistan as Seen by Small and Medium Enterprises, 2006. Andrea says that according to the IFC report, doing business in Tajikistan is very complicated. The representatives of SMEs are facing unrealistic challenges caused by taxation, permit system and foreign trade procedures. He hopes that some positive changes will be seen soon.

International donors have a great impact on the development of Tajikistan. However, the resources that they allocate for the development of the country are very often improperly used and in result the goals are not achieved. Anna Nadgrodkiewicz on the CIPE Development blog gives general recommendations for the donors. She points to three important things which donors should have in mind in their relations with local NGOs or other organizations which are responsible for the implementation of development projects:

• the need for flexibility for the local organizations to design their own programs and strategies
• the sense of partnership between the donor and recipient organizations is necessary
• emphasis on working with the young people

Efficiently used resources give birth to such excellent projects as the one Mervyn Fletcher from UNICEF tells us about. Firdavsi Project, implemented in Dushanbe by the Child Rights Center, a UK-based non-governmental organization, provides a community-sentencing alternative for young offenders and prevents them from committing crimes in future.

Ian at Beyond the River links to several articles and posts about Tajik-Afghan border issues – mostly the drug-trafficking issue which has become one of the major problems both for Tajikistan and Afghanistan. He points to the fact that the Afghanistan drug policy on the part of NATO and America is not effective.

Vino links to an article of Henry about the religious reforms in Tajikistan. Though he thinks that the law will restrict religious freedoms in Tajikistan, he argues that the legislation did not come out of a blue and it arose as a result of recent Tajik history where political Islam had a strong impact. He thinks that by enforcing the new legislation on religion the government will curtail political Islam.

Another important event: Steveie Wonder links to an article about the closure of the UNTOP office in Tajikistan. United Nations Tajikistan Office of Peace Building (UNTOP) completed its mission after a 15 years presence in Tajikistan as one of the main contributors to peace building.

Finally, I reported on the new type of transportation in Tajikistan recently (RUS). Chinese minivans are everywhere in Tajikistan. There are many Chinese companies which produce these small vans but people in Dushanbe have found a general name for all of them – Tangem. Tangem is a name of a nurse from Chinese soap opera, which was extremely popular in Tajikistan.

In China this van costs 3,000 USD, and when it is transported to Dushanbe the price rises to 5,000 USD. While the fee for trolleybus equals 30 dirams (10 cents), for bus 40 dirams (14 cents), and for marshrutka 60 dirams (20 cents) in the city of Dushanbe, then for Tangem the passengers pay 1 somoni (35 cents).

The law creates two sets of restrictions- one which is obviously aimed at Islam and the others which are aimed at the minority religions- we shall come on to those later. The law deals with Islam in a particularly direct way. It would restrict mosque building- only one mosque would be allowed per 20,000 people in a rural area, per 30,000 in an urban area and per 80,000 in the capital Dushanbe.

StatGuy says that all missionary and evangelistic activity would be completely banned. He thinks that the ‘proposed law would impose exceedingly difficult and meticulous requirements for registration of religious bodies’.

Even if a religious community can meet the exceptionally high number of signatures required to apply for legal status, Article 20 also requires a large number of documents – from both the state and the religious community - to be appended to the registration application.

Another issue which is discussed in the blogosphere is the deployment of Indian military base in Tajikistan. The discussions about the Indian military base in Aini airport is an old issue but the official sources still deny any information. Indian bloggers are already talking about India as a future superpower which needs to have its military bases outside its territory and the Aini airport would be a good start. Harsha and his friends are discussing the advantages of India having a military base in Tajikistan.

Tajikistan shares borders with China, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and is separated from POK by a narrow strip of Afghan territory. In case of a war with Pakistan, India will be able to attack Pakistan from both sides, and this is one of the major advantages that this airbase offers to India.

The narcotics problem in Tajikistan is getting discussed all the time. Olga gives some information on the current situation. She gives a good description of what is happening in Tajikistan now in terms of drug-trafficking.

In continuation to Olga’s post on drug-trafficking, David Trilling tells us the story of several Russian girls who are drug-addicted and how they deal with the hardships they experience in this country. He is a 2nd year MIA at SIPA and is currently in Tajikstan working on a documentary about the heroin trade in Central Asia.

They are abused, forced to have sex without condoms, beaten and burned with cigarettes, on the run from the police (who rape them days on end when they are arbitrarily arrested), and unable to even have a shower in their sad little home. The only source of running water, when it is on, is a sickly little sink in the front yard that appears also to serve as a toilet.

Bonnie Boyd at Central Asia reports that the Tajik government together with World Bank is trying to solicit investment in the cotton industry. The cotton industry is one of the major sectors of the economy but the lack of investment makes it profitless. According to Bonnie, even if the investment will be solicited, the current problems in the cotton industry are hard to overcome.

…it does not have many value-added aspects of the industry, including ginning and baling facilities and warehouses to support those parts of cotton enterprise…

Another aspect of Tajikistan’s cotton agriculture is that it grows medium-staple and long-staple cotton (long-staple makes the silkiest yarn and is most valuable), which means that the loss of value-added processes costs even more.

Again, David Trilling reports on police corruption in Tajikistan. He had an experience to make the local traffic police officer abandon taking a bribe when he saw the camera of David.

The main avenue through Dushanbe is lined every 50-100 meters with pairs of cops in huge goofy hats. All day long, every day of the week, they use their batons to stop random drivers for no apparent traffic infraction and, after some fawned inspection of papers, solicit bribes.