Right now, I’m living with my in-laws in their apartment far from the center of Dushanbe. I have learned some very interesting things about Tajik solidarity groups in urban areas during my time here.

Generally, solidarity groups in Muslim cultures are organized around the mosque, or masjed. Every 20 to 25 families, which in a rural area would compose about one block of houses in a village, has its own mosque. Then each village would have one large “Friday” mosque, which is the central mosque. This is the case in rural Tajikistan as well, and even in Uzbekistan, although there the government has bureaucratized the institution. In Tajikistan, this area is coterminous with the mahallah in most cases.

The regular mosque group is often (in rural areas) composed of mainly relatives, by marriage and blood. This is only part of a larger solidarity group, the qawm, which is very important to most Persians. Qawm is kind of like tribe, but among Tajiks is much more regional than related to blood.

Now, in rural areas, all of these things- mosque, qawm, family, and tribe, overlap. In urban areas, they often do not.

My brother in law attends a mosque with what appears to be at least 100 other families (my estimation is based on watching people going in and out- if there are two entrances, though I don’t think there are- forget it). His own extended family lives in a neighbourhood that is a 25-minute car ride, or one-hour ride on public transport, away. His qawm (which incidentally, does not transfer to his wife- she maintains ties with her own family for solidarity and support) does not overlap with his mosque, but consists of people belonging to his tiny ethnic minority group from Zafarobod, the Dushanbe contingent of which mainly live in the same neighbourhood (mahallah) as his parents.

Likewise, his mosque does not overlap with his neighbourhood. Although the mosque is localized- I’m not sure exactly which apartment blocks it serves but I believe there are about four or five- his neighbourhood, which would normally be coterminous with his mosque- apparently consists of his pod’yezd.

Pod’yezd is a Russian word which means, roughly, entrance. Each apartment building has a certain number of entrances, which lead to the apartments. In most five-storey apartment buildings, there are ten apartments per pod’yezd, which (due to the size of the apartments) corresponds to the number of families.

Now, normally in Tajik culture, if you have a wedding or circumcision or a wake or something, you would invite everyone from the mahallah, or your regular mosque. In rural areas, this tradition holds. I’ve been to a number of weddings where the whole mosque, plus remaining extended family, are there. It comes to about a hundred families.

In urban areas, however, people only have small apartments and usually cannot have the wedding on the street. You can’t just disturb traffic, in the first place, and in the second place, eventually you all have to go inside. Finally, it’s really expensive to live in the city, and expensive to host all of those people. So when you have guests you just invite the people from your pod’yezd. You can invite more, but it’s considered neighbourly to invite at least the eight or twelve families with whom you share an entrance. You would invite them all whenever you have a party, and whoever comes, comes.

Some people don’t go, though most do, because after all, most women are poor housewives, and never get the chance to out to restaurants. This is their big chance to get cleaned up and put on some makeup with a purpose, and sit without the kids and relax.

This is unlike a rural environment, where you would have more of a social obligation to go, not least because you are almost certainly related to the person inviting you in some way. If you don’t go, I believe that the normal retribution is to gossip incessantly about you, accusing you of being sick, an adulteress, or of giving people the evil eye or God knows what else.

Now, the reason I got very interested in the pod’yezd is that, as I wrote recently, I am soon moving into a nine-storey apartment building, each floor of each pod’yezd of which has four apartments. That means 36 apartments in my pod’yezd. This was somewhat worrying, because although our apartment is relatively large for a Soviet apartment, it is still only 65 square meters or so. And I’ll want to invite them all on some pretext or other pretty soon, to get on good terms, just in case I ever need to borrow a cup of flour in the future or something.

Fortunately, on discussing the subject with my sister-in-law, I learned that in a nine-storey apartment, I am only obligated to invite my four floor-mates, and not the entire pod’yezd. So apparently, the pod’yezd is a kind of fluid concept. You have to invite your closest neighbours, is the idea, but since these people don’t overlap with any solidarity group, there is nothing very obligatory in it.

So in fact I have saved myself trouble by moving into a nine-storey building. I only have to invite my three other floor-mates and that’s it. What a relief.