Faizabad
I admit I was disappointed on my first trip to Faizabad.
Having been entranced by lovely Tajik Badakhshan and Khorog, the fresh air, the trees, the snow-capped mountains, and the charming Ismoilis with their quiet ways and beautiful features, I thought that Afghan Badakhshan would be purer, cleaner, and quainter.
Actually, Afghanistan Badakhshan includes what in Tajikistan is called Kulob. It is the foothills of the Pamirs, and the people are not Pamiris. Kulobis are not Ismoili. They do not speak rare Pamiri languages and they are not the most educated ethnic group in their respective countries (unlike Pamiris, who beat the pack in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan). They are just mountain people with accents. The president of Tajikistan is from Kulob.
Unlike its sister Khorog, Faizabad in Afghanistan is not a particularly green city. Taloqan is greener. Faizabad is also not especially clean, either. And the people- they keep burning down humanitarian offices, staging marches against NGOs, and so on. It’s one of the least safe cities north of Kabul. The road to Faizabad is only slightly better than the road to Khorog, and that only because it’s not as high in the mountains.
But there were some positive points:
–> It is the city that gave the Northern Alliance refuge- which sounds much better when you consider that they were given refuge from the Taliban.
–> There is a really great song by the Tajikistan group Farzin, whom I love for their sense of humor, called “Faizabad”. It has samples of bagpipes and Tajik drums and a lot of playing around with the voice special effects. Going to Faizabad gives me an excuse to listen to that song, and I listened to it about ten times using my Nokia 6230i, which I absolutely love.
–> We got a bird’s eye view of buzkashi about 1 hour outside of Faizabad, which was fun. We were there just as they were starting, and it looked to be an excellent buzkashi. The horses were running beautifully across the dry rice paddies as women watched from their rooftops in the village above, and men and boys from more nearby. It’s impossible to get a sense of the game from an ariel view (you pretty much have to be on the horse, one would think, though having one charging at you is nearly as fun) but I’m posting it here anyway so you can see what we saw.
–> A*, the greatest cook of Afghan dishes I have met, lives here and she’s invited me to dinner once again! We will take advantage tomorrow night if all goes well. She makes a spinach-walnut-Lord-knows-what-else-she-stole-from-heaven-itself pate that I could eat until death.
Now, on to my next task: finding an excuse to go to the Wakhan Corridor.
- Afghanistan | Time: 13.0.20 (UTC+8)
really nice, I love the pictures. Is the A* asiyah? Sadly, I don’t know how to cook very well…but I’m working on it. This is the type of Buzkashi that my uncles sigh wistfully for.
Comment by Asiyah — 22.11.2005 @ 14.0.49
Call me ig’nant, can we get a little more detail about Buzkashi?
Comment by Shannon — 22.11.2005 @ 14.0.26
Elizabeth, great stories again, but “Never complain when you are in the mountains” is a saying you just made me invent. You know what a flat countryside does to my mind? It bores me to death. And I have to live in it…
Comment by Anonymous — 22.11.2005 @ 22.0.08
oh sorry,
I am Chris
Comment by Anonymous — 22.11.2005 @ 22.0.38
Asiyah, I never mention names of Afghans (esp. not women) on the blog, so you need to give me your e-mail if you’d like to know more.
Shannon, I refer you to the following blogs for some more detail on buzkashi:
Babs’ latest post
Buzkashi with its Turkic name (Kup Kari) in Uzbekistan (good photos!)
An Interesting Historical Perspective
Great Buzkashi site from Tajikistan.
I like the last site best but I’m biased.
Enjoy!
Comment by Administrator — 23.11.2005 @ 07.0.36
That’s a really good idea and thoughtful too (not to mention names). This betrays my nationalist narcissim but I TOTALLY thought that buz kashi only existed in Afghanistan…umm, and I’m quite familiar with Afghan history, so I realize that the national boundaries are fluid due to tribalism and etc. Yet I still was astonished that the Tajiks have it too. Silly me. I don’t know much about buzkashi. I haven’t seen it but the men in my family love it…though I know they haven’t ever played it.
Comment by Asiyah — 23.11.2005 @ 13.0.42
Actually, Asiyah, buzkashi is normally said to have been invented by Uzbeks, and that it gained in popularity under Persian rule. Afghan- i.e. Pashtun- people have only started playing it recently. It spread long before the present national boundaries existed, so it’s not a question of inter-cultural exchange- it is one of those remnants (like the Persian language, pilaw, the dutar, and piyalas) from the era when you could ride a horse freely from Isfahaan through Samarqand down to Kandahar without ever opening your passport or pocketbook.
Ah, those were the days.
At present it’s played by Iranian and Turkic peoples all over Central Asia, from the Hazaras to the Pathans to the Ossetians!
Comment by Administrator — 27.11.2005 @ 13.0.14
Afghanistan, the melting pot - the diversity never ceases to amaze me…
Comment by Asiyah — 29.11.2005 @ 11.0.43
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