Tajikistan

Picture
Women power, Tajikistan 2005. This pictures were taken during a wedding celebration in Varsob, north of Dushambe. I didn't ask them to pose for me, the women were those unmarried, divorced or widows who could not participate in the local dancing.
Picture
Kid wondering what those foreigners were doing, Tajikistan 2005.
Tajikistan, situated in the southeastern corner of Central Asia, lies at the heart of the ‘‘Silk Road’’ sharing borders with China to the east, Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west and Kyrgyzstan to the north. From the 1920s Tajikistan formed part of the USSR, becoming an ‘‘independent’’ Socialist Soviet Republic (SSR) in 1929. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the Tadzhik SSR became the new Republic of Tajikistan. The first five years of independence were marred by civil war, with large numbers of the population displaced, widespread destruction of property and infrastructure and significant loss of life. 

During the civil war 50,000 people were killed, 25,000 women widowed, 55,000 children orphaned and close to a million people displaced from their homes. A peace agreement was signed in 1997 and since then the country has reaped the benefits of political and economic stability.

These pictures were taken in 2005 while I was working with the Central Statistical Agency to produce a poverty map of the country. The picture of Tajik women was used for the front cover of the Socio-Economic Atlas of Tajikistan.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTTAJIKISTAN/Resources/atlas_11.pdf
As a result of the political and economic disruption, Tajikistan has experienced almost unprecedented levels of population mobility. In common with other ex-Soviet republics, Tajikistan was affected by a huge wave of out-migration of the non-titular population in the years immediately proceeding and subsequent to independence.

The older people left behind rely primarily on state pensions that have fallen in real terms. 
 PictureLeft behind in transition, Tajikistan 2005.