Dushanbe

For hundreds of years, Dushanbe was merely a small and insignificant village. Every Monday it held a market. That's why the city’s name is derived: “Monday”, in Tajik. The Bolshevik revolution and the Red Army occupation of Central Asia, as well as the construction of a rail line near the village, made Dushanbe the “capital of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic”.

Under the Soviet regime, Dushanbe flourished and developed culturally and economically. However, the Tajik civil war that raged between 1992 to 1997 caused its collapse.

Over the past decade, the city has been rebuilt and has started to thrive once again, becoming a real garden city. With paved roads and wide avenues, traditional restaurants, cafes, shopping centers, hotels of international and local chains located in ancient buildings. Also, with embassies, and large parks fed by an irrigation network, providing the city the sense of a pleasant oasis during the hot summer.

The city’s uniqueness lies in its contrasts between tradition to modernity. Among bearded elders and women dressed in traditional clothing, one can spot men in suits and women in modern clothes. The city is home to a heterogeneous and multicultural population, with a special and Tajik-style slow pace of life.

Russian is often used for communication in the streets and in businesses, In addition to Tajik and Uzbek. The streets are not crowded, and traffic jams are non-existent.