Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan

We left the mountains this morning for a four-hour drive to the capital city of Tajikistan, Dushanbe. Dushanbe means Monday, harkening back to its days as a market town. Today, it’s a city of about 1.5 million.

We happen to be here as preparations are underway for a major meeting starting here on October 8. It’s a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) ten member states: China, India, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Not sure exactly what the meeting is, but they sure are primping the city in preparation. We heard Putin may be here. Maybe Modi as well.

As a result, our itinerary was shifted to allow us to visit a complex called the Navruz Palace. It’s a new property that was completed in 2014 and was paid for by a group of business people from Tajikistan. If we hadn’t gone today, we wouldn’t have been able to go at all since the SCO meeting is taking place there.

We were glad to visit because this building is completely over the top! It is so extravagant, and there is no estimate of how much was spent on building it. The property includes a giant man-made lake, billiards hall, cinema, several restaurants, bowling alley, ornate gardens and four rooms designated as a dining and conference centre. The pictures simply can’t capture how ornate this place is.

We were greeted by our guide, who was also the manager of the palace, and she quickly ushered us into a banquet hall to see the set up for a wedding in the one room that is available to the public. A band struck up some tunes and we were encouraged to dance! Hilarious!

Once we finished the tour, we checked into our hotel and then met the group for lunch. Meals in The Stans for groups are always challenging because service is very unreliable. In this case, people at one end of the table were finished their meals while others hadn’t received any food yet. Very frustrating.

Brad and I decided to freestyle and go wandering in the hotel neighbourhood using Google map’s “attractions” feature. Three of our travel companions decided to tag along and we had a wonderful afternoon. We discovered the president’s palace, which is actually his offices and I went onto the driveway to capture a photo and was quickly whistled down by a guard and shooed away.

We decided to have a low-key evening and and simply went for a walk in the hotel neighbourhood.Read more