Tajikistan

The Republic of Tajikistan (Tajik: , Jumhurii Tojikiston) is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It has borders with Afghanistan, China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

Name

"Tajikistan" means the "Land of the Tajiks". Some believe that the name Tajik is a geographic reference to the crown (Taj) of the Pamir Knot .

Tajikistan frequently appears as Tadjikistan or Tadzhikistan in English. This is due to a transliteration from the Russian Таджикистан. In Russian there is no single letter j to represent the phoneme /ʤ/ and дж, or dzh, is used. Tadzhikistan is the most common alternate spelling and is widely used in English literature derived from Russian sources. Tadjikistan is the spelling in French and can occasionally be found in English language texts.

History

The land that is now Tajikistan has been inhabited continuously since 4,000 BC. It has been under the rule of various empires throughout history, mostly the Persian Empire. Before AD, it was part of the Bactrian Empire. Arabs brought Islam in the 7th century. The Persian Samanid Empire supplanted the Arabs and built the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, which became the cultural centers of Tajiks. The Mongols would later take partial control of the area, and Tajikistan would become a part of the emirate of Bukhara. A small community of Jews, displaced from the Middle East after the Babylonian captivity, migrated to the region and settled there after 600 BC.

In the 19th century, the Russian Empire began to spread into Central Asia during the Great Game, and it took control of Tajikistan. After the overthrow of the Tsar in 1917, Tajik guerillas, known as basmachi waged a war against Bolshevik armies in a futile attempt to maintain independence. The Bolsheviks would prevail after a four year war, in which mosques and villages were burned down and the population heavily suppressed. Soviet authorities imposed a draconian secularization campaign, practicing Muslims, Jews, and Christians were heavily persecuted, and mosques, churches, and synagogues were closed.

As part of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan was initially grouped with what is now Uzbekistan as the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, but in 1929 was made a separate constituent republic. Moscow did not do much to develop the Tajik Soviet Republic, and it remained relatively behind other Soviet Republics in living conditions, education and industry. In the 1970s Islamic underground parties began to form, and served to rally Tajiks against the Soviet Union, but real disturbances did not occur until 1990. The following year, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Tajikistan declared its independence.

The nation almost immediately fell into a civil war that involved various factions fighting one another, these factions were often distinguished by clan loyalties. The non-Muslim population, particularly Russians and Jews, fled the country during this time because of persecution, increased poverty and better economic opportunities in the West. Emomali Rahmonov was the first leader of the nation, and continues to rule to this day. However, he has been accused of ethnic cleansing against other ethnicities and groups during the Tajikistan Civil War. In 1997 a ceasefire was reached between Rahmonov and opposition parties (United Tajik Opposition). Peaceful elections were held in 1999, but they were reported by the opposition as unfair, and Rahmonov was re-elected by almost unanimous vote. Russian troops were stationed in southern Tajikistan, in order to guard the border with Afghanistan, until summer 2005. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, American and French troops have also been stationed in the country.

Politics

Almost immediately after independence, Tajikistan was plunged into a civil war that saw various factions, allegedly backed by Russia and Iran, fighting one another. All but 25,000 of the more than 400,000 ethnic Russians, who were mostly employed in industry, fled to Russia. By 1997 the war had cooled down, and a central government began to take form, with peaceful elections in 1999.

Tajikistan is officially a republic, and holds elections for the President and Parliament. The latest elections occurred in 2005, and as all previous elections, international observers believe them to have been defective, arousing many accusations from opposition parties that President Emomali Rahmonov manipulates the election process.

Tajikistan to this date is the only country in Central Asia to have included an active opposition in its government. In the Parliament, opposition groups have often clashed with the ruling party, but this has not led to great instability.

Account of events from independence leading to the Bishkek agreement of 1997

Administrative Divisions

The country is divided into regions, or provinces (singular: viloyat, plural: viloyatho) (capitals in parentheses)-

Khatlon Viloyati Khatlon (Qurghonteppa)
Sughd Viloyati Sughd (Khujand)
Karotegin (Kofarnihon)

and one autonomous province (viloyati mukhtor)-

Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province (GBAP) Viloyati Mukhtori Kuhistoni Badakhshon (Khorugh).

Additionally, the area containing the capital (RRS, Region of Republican Subordination), Dushanbe, has no viloyat-level administrative divisions.

note: the administrative center name follows in parentheses

Geography

Tajikistan is landlocked, and is the smallest nation in Central Asia by area. It is covered by mountains of the Pamir range, and more than fifty percent of the country is over 3,000 meters (approx. 10,000 ft) above sea level. The only major areas of lower land are in the north which is part of the Fergana Valley, and in the southern Kafirnigan and Vakhsh valleys which form the Amu Darya and have much higher rainfall. Dushanbe is located on the southern slopes above the Kafirnigan valley.

The Amu Darya and Panj rivers mark the border with Afghanistan, and Tajikistan's mountains are the major source of runoff for the Aral Sea basin.

About 1% of the country's area is covered by lakes:

Mountain	Height		Location
Independence Peak	7,174 m	23,537 ft	Northern border in the Trans-Alay Range
Kyzylart Pass	4,280 m	14,042 ft	Northern border in the Trans-Alay Range
Qullai Ismoili Somoni (highest)	7,495 m	24,590 ft	North of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region
Avicenna Peak	6,974 m	22,881 ft	North of Qullai Ismoili Somoni
Peak Korzhenievski	7,105 m	23,310 ft	Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region
Qatorkuhi Akademiyai Fanho	6,785 m	22,260 ft	Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region
Concord Peak	5,469 m	17,943 ft	Southern border in the northern ridge of the Karakoram Range
Qullai Karl Marks	6,726 m	22,067 ft	Southern border in the northern ridge of the Karakoram Range
Qullai Mayakovskiy	6,096 m	20,000 ft	Along the border to Afghanistan.

Exclaves

There are three Tajik exclaves ^*, all of them located in the Fergana Valley region where Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan meet. The largest is Vorukh (exclave area between 95–130 km²/37–50 sq mi, population estimated between 23,000 and 29,000, 95% Tajiks and 5% Kyrgyz, distributed among 17 villages), located 45 kilometres (28 mi) south of Isfara on the right bank of the Karafshin river, in Kyrgyz territory. Another exclave in Kyrgyzstan is a small settlement near the Kyrgyz railway station of Kairagach. The last is the village of Sarvan, which includes a narrow, long strip of land (about 15 km (9 mi) long by 1 km (over ½ mi) wide) alongside the road from Angren to Kokand; it is surrounded by Uzbek territory.

There are no enclaves within Tajikistan.

Economy

Tajikistan was the poorest country in Central Asia following a civil war after it became independent in 1991. With foreign revenue precariously dependent upon exports of cotton and aluminium, the economy is highly vulnerable to external shocks. In FY 2000, international assistance remained an essential source of support for rehabilitation programs that reintegrated former civil war combatants into the civilian economy, thus helping keep the peace. International assistance also was necessary to address the second year of severe drought that resulted in a continued shortfall of food production. On August 21st, 2001, the Red Cross announced that a famine was striking Tajikistan, and called for international aid for Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Tajikistan's economy grew substantially after the war. The GDP of Tajikistan expanded at an average rate of 9.6% over the period of 2000-2004 according to the World Bank data. This improved Tajikistan's position among other Central Asian countries (namely Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), which seem to have degraded economically ever since. BBC's Guide to Central Asia.

Demographics

Tajikistan has a population of 7,011,556 (July 2004). The major ethnic group is the Tajik, although there is a sizeable minority of Uzbeks, and a small population of Russians, whose numbers are declining due to emigration. Pamiris of Badakhshan are considered to belong to larger group of Tajiks. Likewise, the official language of Tajikistan is Tajik, while Russian is largely spoken in business and for government purposes. Although the Tajik and Uzbek are now classified as separate ethnic groups, on account of their languages, this is a relatively new phenomenon and originates from the conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire in the 19th century. Despite its poverty, Tajikistan has a high rate of literacy with an estimated 98% of the population having the ability to read and write. Most of the population follows Sunni Islam, although a sizeable number of Shi'a are present as well. Bukharan Jews had lived in Tajikistan since the 2nd century BC, but today only several hundred remain.

The Tajik Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare reported that 104,272 disabled people are registered in Tajikistan (2000). This group of people suffers most from poverty in Tajikistan. The Tajik government and the World Bank considered activities to support this part of the population (described in the ^*) Poverty Reduction Paper.

Culture

The culture of Tajikistan was originally shared with that of Uzbekistan, but during Communist rule, the cultural fabric of the region was disrupted by the Soviet leadership imposing artificial boundaries and the notion of nation-state - alien to the region - on the area. This has not been completely detrimental though, as Tajikistan was known for its theater and famous novelists during the Soviet era. Among these writers were individuals who strove to purify the Tajik language by tying it in more with Dari and eliminating Russian words and Arabic words.

Most citizens of Tajikistan are Sunni Muslim. The impact of Islam has grown in recent years, and was a strong bonding force during Tajikistan's fight against Soviet rule and during its civil war. Historically, a lot of Tajik culture ties it to the Persian past of the region, and Persian writers, scientists and poets such as Ibn Sina, Firdausi, Rudaki, and Omar Khayyám are especially revered.

Tajikistan is home to a small Jewish community and used to have a synagogue, the Dushanbe synagogue.

Miscellaneous topics

External links and references

Text in the sub-articles from the CIA World Factbook, 2000 and 2003
Tajikistan general portal site
Khovar Tajikistan news agency.
Tajik Development Gateway
neweurasia Tajikistan blog
Tajikistan Tourist info and photos

Central Asian countries | Landlocked countries | Tajikistan

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