· February, 2014

Stories about Tajikistan from February, 2014

Tajikistan's Tastiest Blogs

  21 February 2014

There are three blogs in Tajikistan that are a must read for anyone interested in Tajik cuisine. Tajik Restaurant [Tarabkhonai Tojiki] [tj] shares cook-it-yourself videos and recipes of popular Tajik dishes. Suhailo's Cooking Diary [Daftari pukhtu-pazhoi Suhailo] [tj] teaches its readers to bake pastries popular in the country. Finally, Osh...

Soviet-era Monuments and Slogans in Tajik Capital “Should Stay”

  19 February 2014

Over the last two decades, the authorities in Dushanbe have dismantled most of the Soviet-era monuments and huge political slogans on rooftops which had all been an important feature of the cityscape before 1991. However, as Radio Ozodi reports [tj], Tajikistan's capital has preserved a handful of Soviet statues, slogans, and signs...

An “Increasingly Uncertain” Future for Central Asia's Fergana Valley

  12 February 2014

On the Caravanistan blog, Cycloscope writes about radioactive landfill sites in the Fergana Valley, a region “absurdly divided between Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan”: Unaware of the dangers of radioactivity, the locals take the equipment in the old abandoned mines and sell them as scrap, risking not only their own lives...

Tajik Team at Olympics Opening Ceremony Included a Russian “Tourist”

  11 February 2014

Following the Olympics opening ceremony, many people in Tajikistan were shocked to find out [ru] that one of the individuals who walked into the ceremony in Sochi alongside Tajik athletes under their nation's flag had little to do with the country. Vladimir Vladimirov, a Russian entrepreneur and member of a municipal...

Tajik Bloggers Ask to Meet With President

  10 February 2014

Every year, the president of Tajikistan meets with selected members of the national intelligentsia in Dushanbe, in late March. These meetings normally feature long speeches by the president followed by endless praise of his work and his answers to carefully scripted questions from the audience.  As the authorities begin [ru]...

Tajikistan: Welcome to the “Facebook Republic of Pitzostan”

  9 February 2014

A government committee in charge of enforcing language regulations in Tajikistan has recently caused many laughs by insisting that the word “pizza” should be replaced with “pitzo” on restaurant signs in the country's capital. According to the committee's chair, “pitzo” sounds more “Tajik”. #Tajikistan has officially renamed pizza “pitzo”. For...

“What the Hell Is Tajikistan? Why Do They Even Exist?”

  8 February 2014

Tajikistan is a small and relatively young country unknown to many people throughout the world. Tajikistan Monitor writes: The opening ceremony for this year’s Winter Olympics gave me an opportunity to monitor people’s online reactions to watching team Tajikistan enter the Sochi stadium. Below are just some of the most...

Surname Change As “National Duty” in Tajikistan

  5 February 2014

Following a controversial assertion by Tajikistan's Prosecutor General, senior officials in the country continue claiming that citizens whose surnames end in “-ov” or “-ev” are not patriots. Speaking to journalists today, Gavhar Sharofzoda, the head of the Tajikistan Language and Terminology Committee, said [ru], “Getting rid of Russian endings in...