Displaying A Great Life In Dushanbe

Technology enabling fantasy. Dushanbe has embraced the advances in hack photoshop work and the ability to print large images on vinyl. Many construction sites around town proudly display the future in all its over-saturated, Tik Tok looking, eternal youth beauty.

Sometimes it's hard to tell where the fantasy ends (A parking garage!, Young love!) and the dusty reality of a construction site begins.

Our Random Image Of Awe Inspiring Natural Beauty Here. Future, garish cupcake in the place of old, iconic, Soviet architecture. Threatening.

What's the connection? What this plot looked like 2,000 years ago? Two years ago?

Your life, projected. You like skateboarding, yoga, making deals and your boyfriend, right? Or maybe you're a pool, Heated Rivalry TV show guy?

Back to a construction fence, Wizard of Oz miles of flowers to cheer up the glum of building.

Doing The Shop At Big Mehrgon Market In Dushanbe

Dushanbe recently moved its central market to a new, grand space and the place is impressive. Anything and everything one needs under one, fancy roof. Grab your shopping bags and head in.

Exterior, a bit of a palace.

Found in every market in Central Asia, lots of dried fruits, nuts, and spices.

The new digs are big, looking a little like a movie set version of ancient Rome with the giant columns.

Men are standing by with their blue carts, ready to haul your weekly shop, including someone's big leg of something. Piles and varieties of non bread are plentiful. Grab a disc.

Down home butcher. Organ on cardboard, such a delicacy.

Planting Flowers For May Day In Dushanbe

May Day (May 1), now Labor Day, is one of the biggest public holidays in Tajikistan and a key component of the celebration is beautiful beds of blooming flowers in every public space. The holiday is a holdover from Soviet times and the theme of recognizing workers, socialist solidarity, and a brutalist system meant to crush the everyman. OK, maybe that last part was more of a private celebration.

May Day is still celebrated in Tajikistan and they go all in on the flower part. Time to get planting.

"Let's go babushkas, these flowers don't plant themselves." The old women labor seems also to be a Soviet holdover.

Planting is for women, delivering is for the men. Multitasking. Plant a flower, make a Facetime call.

The end product is lovely. Spicing up the monument of Ismail Samani.

It's an impressive task, many boxes, many beds to fill. The planting areas are everywhere. More to do in Victory Park.

Another flower victory, around the Independence monument.

Taking A Look Around Dushanbe, Part Two

Horses, guns and paintings, Dushanbe has it all. Time to look at it.

White plus black equals black and white. Interesting. Sure.

Mini amusement. Small pleasures. Apartment construction with lifestyle dream on the front fence. Somehow, skiing and a nice parking garage are big selling points. Might have to tweak the focus group.

Golden parking spot.

Intimidating. Detail of a sculpture at Sadriddin Aini square. Splicing power.

Art for sale in a pedestrian street underpass. "Whadya looking for? Flowers? A horse? Some fruit? How about an old mill or some guns?"

Monumental Victory In Dushanbe

The Soviets left all sorts of monuments to the Great Patriotic War, aka, WWII, all over Central Asia. The glory of military victory is good propaganda.

Dushanbe has an understated memorial, appropriately titled, Victory Monument.

Two simple steles with nice, brutalist, socialist, blocky frieze figures around the bottoms. Down goes the Nazi flag, up with flowers of peace.

The placement of the Victory Monument turned out to be a traffic choked plaza and the Dushanbe powers decided to duplicate the monument in, well, Victory Park. Bigger! Cleaner! Room for a tank!

With May Day approaching, time for an annual spit and polish. Photos of the dead. The images are near Victory Monument, part of a grand staircase that leads up to an eternal flame and plaza for memorial reflection.

The eternal flame, fresh laid flowers and a plaque that proclaims no one is forgotten.

Soviet Architecture In Dushanbe

The Soviets were running Tajikistan for about 70 years, from around the time of the Russian revolution until independence in the early 1990s. From baroque to brutalist designs, the Soviets built all sorts of things in Dushanbe and some of the old USSR style is still holding on.

The coolest Soviet building in Dushanbe, the round Borbad Hall. Great avocado and yellow concrete sculpture out front.

Put the great ones on a wall. At the writer's union, a spacial space is reserved for sculptures of some of the best Tajik writers. A park cable car station, as brutalist as it gets. Striking. Alas, closed.

Older buildings in Dushanbe have more of a baroque, rococo, maybe moderne style. The Tajik Institute of Art and Design. Nice clock tower.

Movie time, the Batah theater. A staircase at the old Soviet department store. Love the blingy balusters. A little touch of luxury when buying your rubber underpants.

Ahh, progress. The death march of American fast food, butting up against the grand National Academy of Sciences building. The Colonel beats the Tsar.

Taking A Look Around Dushanbe, Part One

Lots of little things to look at in Dushanbe. Construction, sculptures, random signs of life are all on display.

Big cranes at a fantastical bridge. Curvy.

Creative (and matching) windshield cover. Dry fountain, now a rock garden.

Park ambassador. Curious.

More construction. Expansive excavation. Auto relaxation.

Small stadium. Colorful.

Getting Stuffed At The National Museum Of Tajikistan

One of the highlights at the National Museum of Tajikistan is the expansive display of animal taxidermy. Lots of local fauna is featured in natural looking, a bit crowded habitats. Time to go hunting.

Big sheep with big horns. "We know we're cute."

Falcon with a little lunch. Bloody. Half moose. A nice bit of trompe l'oeil. You work with the taxidermy you have.

Everybody into the pool. More is more, even if some animals would never be seen together. Looking a little like an over-stuffed Bruegel painting.

More sheep, giving the view of their best side. Butt out. Big growl of a wolf.

A little mountain chase between a leopard and sheep.