You're reading: Tajikistan: pleasant for foreigners, rough for locals

DUSHANBE – Settling into my seat aboard Somon Air’s packed Boeing jet at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport en route to the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, I was preparing to acknowledge the chief flight attendant’s expected “welcome on board” greeting, but she caught me off guard.

The curious flight attendant, a woman in her late 20’s, raised her voice: “What are you hiding over there?”

 I stalled for a moment, thinking she was speaking to me, until it was clear that her attention was directed at another passenger – a young Tajik woman of approximately the same age. 

“Are you pregnant?” the flight attendant asked. “Why are you trying to hide this? – Do you have a doctor’s permission to fly?”

Luckily, the woman was allowed on board, either by showing the proper paperwork, paying a bribe or simply talking her way out of it. Minutes later our aircraft took off, passing by a beautifully painted Airbus A-380 from United Arab Emirates, also on its way up. The recorded safety message played on our plane, warning passengers not to rip off the oxygen masks from the inside the cabin, was a weird contrast to the view. 

I was on my way to Tajikistan, one of the poorest countries in Central Asia. Plagued by corruption – largely fueled by rampant drug traffic and aggravated by the 19-year rule of its current President Emmomali Rakhmon – Tajikistan is not an easy place to live and provide for a family. As a result, nearly 15 percent of Tajiks go abroad for work. It became immediately apparent for a few of those returning that their homecoming would not be very smooth.

That the Tajik authorities are not exactly the most welcoming towards its own folk (even compared to their Ukrainian counterparts) became clear when we arrived at our destination. It appeared that Tajik nationals, not just foreigners, had to complete the immigration cards upon arrival.

Waiting in line – and Tajik border guards could hold the Asian record for the length of time it takes to check a passport – was also much smoother for foreigners. First, some of the guards would handpick Russian-speaking passengers, offering them an opportunity to skip ahead in line for a fee. Once this source of income had been exhausted, a burly man, seemingly the guards’ supervisor, began to handpick passengers who were allowed to pass the check point without waiting. 

Going through customs was just as discriminatory. While my fellow Tajik travelers literally had to unpack their luggage to be searched, I merely had to answer that everything about my belongings was okay. Curious, I asked my benefactors their reason for such kind hospitality. It turned out that they thought I was from Belarus (I’m Ukrainian).

In a pleasant surprise, the low income levels in Tajikistan and the absence of a real estate boom has positively affected Dushanbe. In fact, it turned out to be one of the coziest and most pleasant places to stay that I’ve experienced in a long time. Its downtown, with two- and three-story columned white houses was reminiscent of a quiet seaside town in Crimea – except for the smaller quantity of people on the streets and the absence of a sea. 

A friend from Azerbaijan, who travelled with me, said that Dushanbe reminded her of her capital city Baku many years ago, before the start of the oil boom. An influx of oil dollars largely destroyed its unique ambience by adding numerous posh yet tasteless high-rises to the city skyline. 

Gladly, this hasn’t happened to Dushanbe. Yet, the recent megalomaniac activities by local authorities are a bit worrying. In the coming months they plan to unveil the biggest teahouse in the world. It seems a stretch and quite awkward for a city of a little more than 600,000 that is difficult to reach. It’s hard to imagine a major influx of tourists lured by the impressive richly ornamented oriental edifice. 

Back in 2011, Dushanbe got its most bizarre architectural addition – the world’s tallest unsupported flagpole, which won the country a place on the pages of the Guinness Book of Records. Ironically, by building this 165-meter-high structure, which dominates the Dushanbe skyline, Tajikistan broke the record set just two years earlier by Azerbaijan by a measly three meters.

On the way back, again flying via Domodedovo, I found that Tajiks are just as unwelcome in Russia (their main labor migration destination) as they are at home. The passport control lines for the Dushanbe flight were the longest and most static in the entire airport. The only activity the airport employees engaged in was assigning Russian citizens aboard the flight to a different line in order to avoid mixing with the Tajiks.

When after nearly 30 minutes the line hadn’t budged an inch, some of the passengers complained to a Russian border guard, who barked: “Why have so many of you arrived?”

Passing through passport control wasn’t the end of it. All the luggage had to be scanned for drugs, which meant another hour of waiting until the spaniel dog could sniff each bag. To make matters worse, the conveyor belt meant to spit out passengers’ bags broke down, which meant an extra 20 minutes of waiting for it to be fixed.

When irritated passengers approached an airport administrator for assistance, she conveniently and confusingly blamed the delay on the drug control unit before scurrying away.

A few minutes passed before she returned with a janitor, a middle-aged Tajik woman whom she began to scold. The area around the conveyor belt, in her opinion, was not clean enough. Nevermind that it wasn’t working.

Kyiv Post staff writer Vlad Lavrov can be reached at [email protected].