Tajikistan Vacation

As summers are ferociously hot and winters bitterly cold, spring (April to June) and autumn (September to November) are the best seasons to visit. March is also a good time, as you’ll experience the Navrus festival. Up in the Pamirs, July to September is the only practical time to travel. The Anzob and Shakhristan passes between Khojand and Dushanbe are generally closed from late November to late May.

Dushanbe (Tajik: Душанбе, Dushanbe; formerly Dyushambe or Stalinabad), population 661,100 people (2006 census), is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. The name is derived from the Persian word for “Monday” (du two + shamba or shanbe day, lit. “day two”) and refers to the fact that it was a popular Monday marketplace.

Tajikistan (pronounced /təˈdʒɪkɨstæn/ or /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/; Tajik: Тоҷикистон, pronounced [tɔʤikɪsˈtɔn] or [tɒːʤikɪsˈtɒn]), officially the Republic of Tajikistan (Tajik: Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон) is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People’s Republic of China to the east. Most of Tajikistan’s population belongs to the Tajik ethnic group, who share culture and history with the Persian peoples and speak the Tajik language. Once the location of the Samanid Empire, Tajikistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union in the 20th century, known as the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic.

After independence, Tajikistan suffered from a devastating civil war which lasted from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly-established political stability and foreign aid have allowed the country’s economy to grow. Its natural resources such as cotton and aluminium have contributed greatly to this steady improvement, although observers have characterized the country as having few natural resources besides hydroelectric power and its strategic location