First impressions of Dushanbe

I've been in the capital Dushanbe for a couple days now, but I haven't had a chance to write about it until now.

Everything in Dushanbe is huge. The streets are huge, and the buildings lining the streets are huge. They were all built in the Soviet era, I guess the Soviets wanted to show off their might. I am working in the Ministry of Health, and sitting in one of those grandiose buildings right now. They seem very silly to me, because they try to give off this magnanimous air, but inside they are super ghetto. The elevator in the Ministry of Health is super tiny and shakes a lot, which really scared me in the beginning. It is very dark, and the buttons for the floors are like buttons on a child's toy, except dark-Soviet style. The view from the office I am working in is beautiful, however. You can see the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and close-by mountains are dotted with farms.

I live in Rudaki Avenue, (which starts with P in the Cyrillic alphabet), which is the main government street in Dushanbe. The presidential palace is also on Rudaki, I walk by it on the way to the bazaar! Here is a picture of the president's house.

I also took some pictures of the street. You can see how big it is in this picture.

And I was walking behind two women while I was taking pictures of the street, and noticed they were wearing matching traditional outfits. I find this sort of amusing, so I wanted to take a picture of them without them noticing. Unfortunately, one of the women kept staring at me, so she caught me taking her picture from behind. Whoops!

I get stared at a lot here. I thought there might be Chinese people in Tajikistan because it borders China, but it borders the New Territory which is mostly Uyghurs, and I haven't seen any Asian-looking people in Dushanbe yet. My PI in Chicago told me I would blend in in Tajikistan, more so than European-looking people. Maybe he thought everyone who is not white looks the same, because this is not true. People are constantly staring at me! At first I thought maybe I had mud smeared across my face, or my skirt was tucked into my underwear. The children stare the most, I guess since they haven't learned any tact yet.

My apartment is very pretty, and I like that it is right on Rudaki Avenue. There are Persian rugs on the floor in the living room, as you can see in the picture below. I think an old lady owns the apartment, because there are also these hilarious stuffed bears on top of the dressers in the bedroom. In the picture with the stuffed bears, you can see my feet as I was laying on the bed taking the picture. Sorry. :)


Another reason why I think the apartment is owned by an old lady is this thing I initially thought was some sort of hat. When I went to pick it up, I found a teapot underneath...it is a tea cozy! A very festive one at that.