Tajikistan Life & Culture - The Times Of Central Asia

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Asia Now Creating a Market for Central Asian Art in Paris

When we think about spreading knowledge of Central Asian art in Europe, we might think of exhibitions, of festivals, of panels and talks, not necessarily of an art fair. However, in the contemporary art world, it is today the market, more than art critics, which dictates the emergence of certain art scenes as a whole. For the historically underrepresented Central Asian art market, smaller fairs represent today an important alley, more than the big fairs such as Art Basel – which just had its second Paris iteration this October. Smaller “boutique fairs,” as they are called, often present curated programming which allow a wide public – not just collectors and buyers – to enjoy the art as it was an exhibition. A selling one, of course. In Paris, the most relevant fair which has historically presented Central Asian artists to the European public is called Asia Now, and it took place in Paris from October 17 to 20. Entirely dedicated to Asian art, the fair has historically tried to fill the gap for Central Asian art in the European market in the past ten years of its existence. The fair has selected more than 70 leading and emerging contemporary art galleries from all over the world, presenting more than 220 artists coming from 26 territories from all over Asia and its diaspora, stretching from Central Asia to the Asia-Pacific, including West, South, South-East, and East Asia. Their commitment to expanding knowledge of Central Asian art in Europe culminated last year in a show which was indeed focused on Central Asia, and curated by the artist group Slav and Tatars. While seminal Central Asian galleries such as the Aspan Gallery from Almaty and Pygmalion Gallery from Astana didn’t return to Asia Now this year, the fair still presented a number of Central Asian artists and practices, interspersed between the main show, and the booths. Central Asian Artists in the Radicant’s Main Show The main exhibition of Asia Now was curated by Radicants, a collective founded by art critic Nicolas Bourriaud, and it was centered on sacred ceremonies seen as a powerful tool for re-examining societal structures and reconnecting with ancestral roots. Called “Ceremony,” the main show was co-curated by Nicolas Bourriaud and Alexander Burenkov, a curator of Russian origins who has been working for a long time with Central Asian narratives, which are also featured prominently in the show. [caption id="attachment_25510" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Image: TCA, Naima Morelli[/caption] The idea of ceremony ties to the tenth anniversary of the art fair, but at the same time the curators opted to explore the nuances of ritual as both a "celebration of ancestral wisdom" and a "critical tool for interrogating and redefining established traditions and power dynamics." As Burenkov noted, the decision to use the theme of ceremony emerged after conversations with Asia Now director Alexandra Fain. “The choice fell on ‘ceremony’ in all its variability and polysemy [was used] to explore the non-obvious meanings of ritual through the eyes of contemporary artists...

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85-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossils Discovered in Tajikistan’s Sughd Region

Dinosaur fossils estimated to be 85 million years old have been discovered in Tajikistan's Sughd region. The excavation took place in the village of Kansai, a renowned paleontological site known for its rich array of prehistoric animals, including ancient lizards, turtles, crocodiles, amphibians, and fish from the Cretaceous period. The expedition, organized by Russian and Tajik scientists, builds on Kansai’s long-standing significance in paleontology. In the 1960s, Soviet scientist Anatoly Rozhdestvensky and his team uncovered numerous dinosaur remains, including a therizinosaur femur. In the 1980s, Lev Nesov identified traces of mammals from the Cretaceous period. This year, a team led by Associate Professor Pavel Skuchas from St. Petersburg State University has expanded research in Kansai, focusing on smaller vertebrates. Tajik researchers, including Umed Nabiev, a master’s student in paleontology, and ecologist Gafurjon Karimov, joined the excavation. The fossils were excavated from the walls of a large canyon containing Upper Cretaceous sediment layers, where the team found remains of lizards, salamanders, frogs, and fish. “We used a washing technique to carefully extract even the smallest bones and teeth,” Nabiev explained, noting that a special adhesive was applied to the rock to protect these fragile finds. Among the larger discoveries were crocodile and turtle shells, as well as the bones of an 85 million-year-old dinosaur. Further research will determine which parts of the dinosaur’s body these bones belonged to. The excavation is set to resume next May, and scientists plan to explore new canyon sections previously mined for cement production. “Previously, the remains of large animals have been studied quite well, while the remains of smaller animals, such as amphibians and reptiles, have been neglected. In our next expedition, we will also search for small vertebrates,” Nabiev added. Tajikistan has seen several significant archaeological discoveries in recent years. In 2023, artifacts unearthed at the Oshkhon site in the Eastern Pamirs indicated human presence dating back about 14,000 years. In 2021, a joint Tajik-German expedition in the village of Khushdilon (Torbulak) near Danghara district uncovered the remains of a Hellenistic sanctuary dating from the 3rd to 1st centuries B.C. These findings continue to expand the historical and cultural understanding of the region.

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GTA and Counter-Strike Banned in Tajikistan

Residents of Tajikistan have been ordered to refrain from playing popular computer games such as Grand Theft Auto and Counter-Strike, and owners of computer game clubs have been banned from distributing them. According to information published by the Dushanbe police press service on Telegram, these games can influence young people and make them more prone to criminal behavior. “According to the results of the historical and cultural expertise of the Tajik Ministry of Culture, the games Counter-Strike and Grand Theft Auto contain scenes of violence, murder, and robbery,” police said. Game club owners and parents of children were told to comply with national laws prohibiting violent and unethical video games, and said raids would be conducted at game clubs to detect violations. A similar initiative has been discussed in Russia. In 2022, the State Duma proposed banning video games containing violent scenes, pornography, and profanity. Counter-Strike is a multiplayer shooter in which teams of special forces and terrorists perform missions to rescue hostages, clear bombs, or protect VIPs. Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is an adventure game in which the player performs missions in fictional American cities, participating in criminal activities, driving vehicles, and committing robberies to advance the story.

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Tajikistan Has Baked the World’s Tallest National-Themed Cake

In Dushanbe, 15 pastry chefs and representatives of the World Federation of Restaurant Sports (WFRS) from Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan set a world record by making a cake weighing 200 kg and 2.10 meters high. This culinary masterpiece became the world's tallest nationally-themed cake, which was confirmed by the Eurasian Rating Agency (ERA). The cake was transported by truck to Abulkasim Ferdowsi Park and placed on a decorated table. A copy of the 45-centimeter-high Ismoil Somoni monument was placed on the cake, and the confectionery had a square base with a side of 1.1 m. The cake was decorated with gingerbread figures of Tajikistan's landmarks, national ornaments, and more than 300 marshmallow elements stylized as watermelons, melons, grapes, and other fruits. Pastry chef Natalie Vee said the cake is designed for 100-200 people. The team created it in four days, using 160 eggs, 25 kg of sugar, about 45 kg of sugar paste, several kilograms of flour, and about 30 liters of juice. “We have set records in Russia, Africa, and Europe. This is the first record for Tajikistan, and I hope it will remain for a long time,” said Alexander Rabinovich, chairman of the ERA's Service and Hospitality Committee and WFRS secretary general. He explained that the cake preparation coincided with World Chef's Day and the national holiday Mehrgon. On that day, Ferdowsi Park also became the center of Mehrgon celebrations, where a harvest and culinary fair was organized, offering vegetables, fruits, honey, and drinks from different regions of Tajikistan. Two cake records stand out for their impressive scale and global attention. The tallest cake, created in Indonesia for a Christmas event in Jakarta in 2008, reached an astounding 33 meters. Equally remarkable is the record for the longest cake, stretching 5,300 meters, made in India in 2020. Both cakes captivated international audiences with their sheer size and uniqueness.

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Laughter Amidst Ruins: Rediscovering Tajikistan’s Resilience Through Comedy and Cultural Exchange

The UN General Assembly's Human Rights Council recently condemned the government of Tajikistan for its failure to implement the recommendations of a 2019 study by UN representatives. The study focused on the unreconciled atrocities and societal wounds caused by the civil war that swept through the republic after the collapse of the Soviet Union. More than 60,000 people died in this war, and more than 250,000 fled the republic. Reading this news, I was reminded of and reflected on post-war Tajikistan, which I visited in the late summer of 2000. At that time, the country had been in a state of fragile peace for two years, and you could still feel the tension in the air. Since my visit to the country in 2000, the Tajik Civil War has been reflected on by many people in the arts. In the same year that UN researchers were raking up the old tragedy, the film Kazbat was released in Kazakhstan. This movie is a military drama about the real deaths of 17 soldiers of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan (now the National Guard), who fell into an ambush in Tajikistan on April 7, 1995. A little earlier, in 2017, Russian writer Vladimir Medvedev released the novel Zakhok, which talks about the horrors of that six-year war through the struggles of a single family, where the mother is Russian, and the children are half Tajik. My visit to this war-torn country was for a reason most wouldn’t have expected - a comedy festival. The group that I traveled with consisted of my teammates, Almaty residents, as well as people from other Kazakh, Uzbek, and Kyrgyz cities. Despite coming from all over Central Asia, we ended up in Tajikistan for the first international СVN festival (СVN - Club of the Funny and Inventive) in Central Asia. СVN is an improv and sketch comedy competition involving students that originated in Soviet times, the point of which is to satirize the surrounding reality through theatrical skits and question-based improv. Due to its satirical nature, СVN was banned for two decades during the Soviet-era. It was later revived during Perestroika, and, in the shortest possible time, became a phenomenon in all universities in Russia and across almost all of post-Soviet space. In Kazakhstan, СVN was developed immediately after the collapse of the USSR. Alma-Ata, which was the capital city back then, organized its own league, which included teams from the leading national universities of that time - Kazakh State University, Narkhoz, Almaty Institute of Transport Engineers, and Almaty State Medical Institute. I belong to the second generation of СVN players. Our task was to popularize this game throughout the republic and attract not only universities but also colleges and schools. Later, the new СVN league went beyond Kazakhstan, starting with friendly meetings with universities from Bishkek, Tashkent, and other Central Asian cities. Then, the International League of СVN, which was created and headed by Alexander Maslyakov, who passed...

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British Museum Opens Silk Roads Show – With Help from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan

The British Museum opened Silk Roads to the public on Thursday, delivering a highly anticipated exhibition about the vast, interlocking routes that connected cultures across Asia, Africa and Europe for centuries and includes ancient chess pieces and other items on loan from Uzbekistan as well as Tajikistan. The show, which runs until Feb. 23, 2025, aims to get beyond traditional notions of spices, camels and sand dunes, as well as the misconception that there was one “Silk Road” - a single pathway that ran across Central Asia, linking traders in the West with those in the East. While the Silk Roads network lasted for millennia, the British Museum is focusing on the period between AD 500 and 1,000, when contacts accelerated and religions and technology flourished across far-flung regions. “Rather than a single trade route from East to West, the Silk Roads were made up of overlapping networks linking communities across Asia, Africa and Europe, from East Asia to Britain, and from Scandinavia to Madagascar,” the museum says in its introduction to the London show. The British Museum worked with 29 national and international partners on the exhibition, which includes objects from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan that have never been on display in Britain and highlight the importance of Central Asia to the continent-sweeping saga of the Silk Roads. Uzbekistan, home to Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand and other sites associated with the ancient network, is a big player in the exhibition. It is lending “the oldest group of chess pieces ever found” and a six-meter-long wall painting from the ‘Hall of the Ambassadors’ in Afrasiab, an ancient spot in Samarkand, according to the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation. “The painting evokes the cosmopolitanism of the Sogdians from Central Asia who were great traders during this period,” the state foundation said. Saida Mirziyoyeva, a daughter of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and a senior presidential aide, attended the exhibition roll-out this week. “A must-see for anyone passionate about Silk Road history!” she said on X. The National Museum in Tajikistan, which started working with the British Museum on plans for Silk Roads in 2022, has said it is lending items “related to the Buddhist culture of the 7th and 8th centuries, found in the monuments of Ajinateppa, Kafarnihon, and Vakhsh.” Objects on display include a Buddha figurine found in Sweden; an Islamic-style map drawn for the Christian king of Sicily; a Chinese ceramic dish found in a shipwreck in Indonesia; a gilded silver cup whose components indicate links between Scotland and West Asia; a gold shoulder clasp with Indian garnets that was found at the Sutton Hoo ship burial in Suffolk; and a gold bowl found in Romania that was linked to the Avars, an originally nomadic group from the northeast Asian steppe. The exhibition is not just about physical objects. There are also stories about an African king, a Chinese princess and other characters whose lives were connected to the Silk Roads, and insights into religious encounters and the spread of...