City Tour of Opulent Dushanbe

We met our group and our tour leader Shazod at 11am this morning. We are 12 people, which requires two mini buses to accommodate all of us and our luggage. We are 9 Brits, 1 American and 2 Canucks. We embarked on a city tour of Dushanbe, which is a city with a captivating history and unique architecture. Our first stop was the National Museum of Antiquities where we viewed the famous “Sleeping Buddha” as well as many richly illustrated artifacts dating back to the stone and the bronze ages. We also learned how the Persian Empire conquered this area, hence the language spoken here is of Persian influence, unlike the adjoining Republics whose language are derived from the Turkish language. It was unique experience to walk barefoot throughout the museums on plush Persian carpets. Next up was the Navruz Palace which was shockingly opulent. The very animated palace guide reminded us often that this was not a museum but an active part of the community as a venue for weddings and political and business conferences. On top of the fancy rooms, there was a bowling alley, carting, billiards, and a video arcade. We enjoyed a delicious lunch of salads, breads, soup and main course of rice and meat. Consuming so much food made us sleepy so made a quick sweep of the indoor market and then went back to the hotel for a 2 hour break and continued our tour at 7 pm, visiting the statue of Ismail Somoni, the founder of theTajik nation, and wandered through the night lit Rudaki Park, which is dedicated to their great Persian poet Rudaki, who lived in the 10th century. It was a beautiful evening to wander around. We topped the day off with devouring more delicious food at a wonderful Tajik restaurant where we enjoyed some more yummy salad, soup and lamb kebabs. Time to hit the trails and get walking some of it off, or we might just roll through Tajikistan!Read more