Out Of The Frying Pan...: It's Thursday, this must be...Tajikistan!!

It's great having a daughter, Ashley in this case, who is married to a State Department guy and gives us great places to visit. We arrived here in Dushanbe on Saturday after flying through Boston and Istanbul. I admit to never having seen such a diverse departure screen in an airport. I'm sorry you can't read it, but there's everything from Amsterdam to Tehran to Mumbai to Seoul to....you get the picture.

The jet lag made us stupid for only a couple of days, and meanwhile, we enjoyed 'church' with Ashley and her six kids and husband and a few families in their living room.
At the Botanical Gardens the next day, the peacocks were trying hard to impress the pea-hens, who were looking frankly bored, and were more interested in the grass offered by the grandkids.

The national sport here in Tajikistan is gushtigiri, a sort of almost-anything-goes wrestling; all three Olympic medals won by the country have been in wrestling and boxing.

However, the way-back traditional sport is buzkashi (literally "goat pulling" in Persian), in which horseback competitors try to put a decapitated goat carcass through the goal posts. Reading the descriptions of the sport in various Central Asian countries, there are rules in Afghanistan (where it IS the national sport, though it is said of the sport there, "leaders are men who can seize control by means foul and fair and then fight off their rivals. The Buzkashi rider does the same"). Likewise, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan apparently have regulations.

Try as I might, I couldn't find any Tajik rules, though I did find comments that the game is a little more "free-form" here.
This came up because of visiting Hissor, an ancient fortress complex about 30 minutes from Dushanbe. It has been conquered 21 times, and the list of those having done so reads like a Who's Who of Central Asian Guys Conquering Things, including, but not limited to, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander, the Arabs, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and yes, finally the Red Army. Apparently, folks have been living in and defending the place for well over 3,000 years.

A spring-fed lake inside the immense and now-crumbling walls allowed those inside to hold out against visitors, and the large enclosed field apparently was good for a quick game of buzkashi. Fun, but kind of a waste of a goat.

In more modern times, it has proven to be great for horseback rides for three-year-old girls and their moms, who also begged for such in their day.

One of the sad things about visiting out-of-the-way places is the uniformity of dress with the rest of the world. However, here in Tajikistan, most of the women still dress in beautiful long dresses with matching trousers. I snuck the picture over the shoulder of the guy taking the picture.

At the foot of the fortress were several other ancient structures, and I don't mean the woman in the picture. This was a caravanserai, or sort-of-hotel for the Silk Road, which passed this way, even before she was born. Probably...

Among the mandatory activities for any self-respecting American visitor in a foreign country is swimming in the embassy pool, and we checked that off yesterday. The Ambassador herself came out to say a gracious hello, and probably to check on who had made the mistake of admitting the riffraff. No photos, as the camera had to be checked to prevent security leaks of the 5-foot end of the pool.
Today was kind of lazy, but with summer approaching, it was hot. No problema, as no one in Tajikistan has ever said. Pull out the hose and the sprinkler and go at it.