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Yagnob River Valley
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The Yagnob river is a part of the Zeravshan river basin. It is 130 km long and is referred administratively to the Aini district of the Sughd region in Tajikistan. The river originates in a high-mountain valley of the same name situated between the Southern slope of the Zeravshan range and Northern slope of…
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Conference: “Ancient Sogdiana: Past, Present and Future”
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Dushanbe is set to welcome researchers, community members, and international guests, generating significant anticipation for the upcoming international conference on the Yaghnob Valley, officially named: “Ancient Sogdiana: Past, Present and Future”, October 18–19, 2007 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. For background on the event, see the official Information Letter and full Conference Agenda, both now available.…
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Tajikistan’s Mountain Ecosystems at the Heart of National Sustainability
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On December 11, 2023, a pivotal event in Dushanbe convened scholars, policymakers, and environmental advocates, reflecting a global surge in efforts to highlight the sustainability and preservation of mountainous regions. Organized by the Geographical Society of Tajikistan, this International Mountain Day initiative gathered national experts to evaluate the status of Tajikistan’s crucial mountain ecosystems…
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REPORT: Minorities Left Behind
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In late 2022, Minority Rights Group International released a report that laid bare a long-standing truth: Tajikistan’s ethnic minorities are being systematically underserved, particularly in health, education, and political representation. For Yaghnobi communities — already facing the pressures of migration, cultural erosion, and environmental fragility — the findings came as no surprise. But they…
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Yaghnobi Ecology and Memory
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The Yaghnob Valley is a place where the air remembers. Wind moves across stone, and plants that once fed generations still emerge from high mountain soil. But fewer people recognize them now. What once was knowledge — of herbs, animals, snowlines, and shadows — is now becoming memory. And memory, if left uncared for,…
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Establishment of the Park
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After decades of advocacy and vision, a historic milestone has been reached for the Yaghnobi people and Tajikistan’s natural and cultural heritage: on May 2, 2019, the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan officially declared the creation of the “Yagnob National Natural Park”. This landmark decision, formalized in Regulation Act §227, fulfills a vision…
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UNESCO’s Map of Endangered Voices
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In early 2017, UNESCO updated its Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, a global reference for tracking the vitality of minority and Indigenous languages. For the first time, the map brought wider visibility to a silent crisis in Central Asia: Tajikistan’s linguistic diversity is vanishing faster than many realized. Among the more than…
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A Blackboard in the Mountains
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On a late-autumn morning in the Yaghnob Valley, where the path threads past stone ruins and sloping goat pens, there are no signs for school—but the direction is clear. A group of children, notebooks clutched like talismans, walk through frost-bitten light toward a building that may or may not still be standing. In these…
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Fuel and Timber in a Tree-Scarce Valley
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In the Yaghnob Valley, the sound of splitting wood signals more than preparation for winter—it signals a dwindling resource, a daily negotiation between survival and scarcity. Where trees are few and winters long, fire is not a comfort—it is a calculation. For returnee communities living in a fragile alpine ecosystem, fuelwood is both lifeline…
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Carrying Water Uphill
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In Yagnob Valley the water does not come from taps. It is fetched, hauled, and carried—liters at a time, day after day, along steep trails etched by memory and necessity. It comes from springs tucked into rock crevices, or from streams that shrink by midsummer. And most often, it is women and girls who…
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Microclimates and Adaptation
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In the steep, folded terrain of the Yaghnob Valley, climate is not a constant. It changes ridge by ridge, slope by slope, ledge by ledge. One village sits in constant wind; the next in a pocket of frost. Where the sun melts snow before noon on one field, its neighbor may remain frozen well…
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Mountains Are Moving
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In the high ridgelines of the Yaghnob Valley, where snowmelt once defined the rhythm of life and stone trails held steady for generations, the mountains are no longer still. Across this fragile and culturally rich landscape, a new form of instability is emerging—frequent landslides, sudden rockfalls, and creeping ground collapse. Climate change has shifted…