Tajikistan: Winter of Discontent
Launched March 11, 2009
The global financial crisis is now reverberating deep inside the Tajikistan's mountainous countryside, where tens of thousands of Tajik men who no longer have jobs in Russia have returned to their villages. In a country already straining to accommodate Tajik refugees from Afghanistan, the government's chronic mismanagement has amplified the power and food shortages that permeate the countryside.
Tajikistan is a window into the turbulence shaking the entire post-Soviet space. The country is also on the front lines of the Obama administration's central foreign policy arena, the war in Afghanistan.
Carolyn Drake and Ilan Greenberg document the country's struggle to cope with an onslaught of returning migrants, refugees, and food security issues in the context of a Central Asia region already challenged by water and energy shortages, falling commodity prices, and dysfunctional governance.
Grantee
Ilan Greenberg has reported in dozens of countries for such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, and Slate. Currently based in New York, he is an Adjunct...
Grantee
Carolyn Drake is a documentary photographer based in Istanbul. She received a Fulbright Fellowship to Ukraine in 2006, the Lange-Taylor Prize in 2008 and has earned awards from World Press Photo,...
Gateways
More press credential-less street interviews and meetings today including an off the record interview with the US ambassador.
"This is why we have no electricity, no water," says Alovutdin Sololiev, waving at the broken-down traffic lights as he speeds into a major intersection, asserting a right of way not recognised by
For reasons never explained to me, the city of Khojand has an unusual number of non-governmental organizations. Before flying back to Dushanbe this evening, I meet with a couple of them.
The spreading global financial crisis has raised the specter of widespread upheaval in this small but strategically important mountainous former Soviet nation straddling Afghanistan's jagged northe
Food insecurity can result from climate change, urban development, population growth and oil price shifts that are interconnected and rarely confined by borders. It’s an issue of global importance,...
Our tickets were booked for the 11am flight to Khojand, not 2pm as we asked for and were told was our departure time.
This morning I met with Tajiks involved in agricultural development. A big government reform is in place that could have a huge impact on Tajikistan's agriculture.
More press credential-less street interviews and meetings today including an off the record interview with the US ambassador.
"This is why we have no electricity, no water," says Alovutdin Sololiev, waving at the broken-down traffic lights as he speeds into a major intersection, asserting a right of way not recognised by
For reasons never explained to me, the city of Khojand has an unusual number of non-governmental organizations. Before flying back to Dushanbe this evening, I meet with a couple of them.
The spreading global financial crisis has raised the specter of widespread upheaval in this small but strategically important mountainous former Soviet nation straddling Afghanistan's jagged northe
Our tickets were booked for the 11am flight to Khojand, not 2pm as we asked for and were told was our departure time.
This morning I met with Tajiks involved in agricultural development. A big government reform is in place that could have a huge impact on Tajikistan's agriculture.
Taking a car from Dushanbe, Tajikistan's easy-going capital city, to the Afghanistan border requires special permission from government authorities. I didn't have it.
More press credential-less street interviews and meetings today including an off the record interview with the US ambassador.
For reasons never explained to me, the city of Khojand has an unusual number of non-governmental organizations. Before flying back to Dushanbe this evening, I meet with a couple of them.
Our tickets were booked for the 11am flight to Khojand, not 2pm as we asked for and were told was our departure time.
This morning I met with Tajiks involved in agricultural development. A big government reform is in place that could have a huge impact on Tajikistan's agriculture.
Central Asia is not a beacon for press freedom. But government attitudes are generally calibrated by the language a journalist writes or broadcasts.
On the Turkish Airlines flight into Dushanbe, the young American woman sitting next to me was enthusiastic about her next three days of personal freedom in Tajikistan.
