Tajikistan

A Persian-speaking land in the mountains

Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north and China to the east, and has a population of more than 10 million. Dushanbe, the capital, is its largest city. The country declared independence on 9 September 1991, as the Soviet Union was breaking up.

Tajiks form the majority, and their national language, Tajik, is a form of Persian; Russian is used as the language between ethnic groups. The Samanid Empire (819 to 999) expanded Samarkand and Bukhara, now in Uzbekistan, into cultural centres of the Iranian world, according to Wikipedia, and revived Persian culture.

Oshi palav and the shared plate

Palav, also called osh, is the national dish. It is a rice dish made with strips of carrot and pieces of meat, fried together in vegetable oil or mutton fat in a cauldron over an open flame, and eaten from one large plate set in the middle of the table, traditionally by hand. UNESCO, which added Oshi Palav to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2016, calls it the King of meals, notes that up to 200 varieties exist, and records sayings that tie it to friendship and respect. Groups of men or women cook it at home or in teahouses, often while making music, and an apprentice who has mastered the dish hosts a dinner for the teacher.

Qurutob is another dish eaten by hand from a communal plate. Its name describes how it is made: qurut, dried balls of salty cheese, is dissolved in water, ob, and poured over strips of thin, flaky flatbread called fatir, then topped with onions fried until golden. Its traditional form contains no meat, and Wikipedia says it is eaten mainly in the southern regions; Global Voices reported in 2016 that it had spread to other parts of the country.

Meals almost always come with non, the flatbread found throughout Central Asia. Wikipedia says that a Tajik who has food but no non will say he is out of food, and that a piece dropped on the ground is put up on a high ledge for beggars or birds. Dairy dishes such as chakka, a sour milk preparation, thick yoghurt and kaymak, a rich clotted cream, are scooped up with bread, and in summer the markets fill with grapes, melons, apricots, pomegranates and figs.

Green tea and the teahouse

Wikipedia calls green tea the common national drink, and World Travel Guide calls it the most common drink in the country. Tea generally accompanies every meal, is frequently offered between meals as a sign of hospitality, and is served hot from a lidded china pot into small cups without handles called piala. Because tea is drunk everywhere, the choykhona, or teahouse, is the most common gathering place in the country, playing much the same role as a coffee house in the West.

Shashmaqom and falak

Shashmaqom, meaning six maqoms, is the classical music of the old cities of Central Asia, in what is now Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with Bukhara as its historical centre. It joins voice, instruments and poetry: singers are accompanied by lutes, fiddles, frame drums and flutes, and because notation records only the basic framework, the music is still passed on from master to student. UNESCO first proclaimed it in 2003 and added it to its Representative List in 2008.

Falak, a word meaning heaven, fortune and universe, is the traditional folk music of Tajikistan’s mountain people. Its high-pitched songs deal with love, pain, homeland and separation, and are sung solo, unaccompanied or with instruments, at festivities and ceremonies but also in the fields or with the herds. UNESCO inscribed falak in 2021.

In Emblem World, the Tajikistan Pavilion gathers local food and drink, from oshi palav and qurutob to green tea, for people to discover and rate.