Pastirog

I set off with a full bottle of delicious dugh, courtesy of the builders. I've found something to seek out in chaykhanas.

The road did much as it did the day before, followed a river, the Khingob up the Rasht valley. The road would rise to get over a bluff or around a gully. As with the day before it wasn't in good shape. I could imagine it was an expensive road to keep in good shape. Even now in summer, the dry season, there was a lot of water about. I suppose that when the Spring rains & melting snow turn some of the small streams that I forded into road destroying torrents. When this happens (& it does regularly) the Pamir region is cut off from the rest of the country.

I wonder how it was during the civil war, I guess damage to the road stayed that way. As this area didn't support the government of that time in Dushanbe even if the road were passable the war would have stopped traffic. As the civil war was going on while the Taleban was either coming to or in power, the border with Afghanistan was probably closed. There can't have been to many ways into the region. The period of the civil war must have been quite grim for the inhabitants. The Aga Khan, who apart from being a filthy rich owner of race horses is the spiritual head of the Ismaeli sect of Islam to which many of the Pamir region belong. He, or his foundation, spent a considerable sum of money in those days to keep the region from starvation.

Tajikistan was hit hard by the break up of the Soviet Union then the Pamir region was hit harder still. With borders with China, Afghanistan & Pakistan it was very strategic, as much so as during the 19C when it was one of the hot spot of the 'Great Game'. The road I'm aiming to cycle on, the Pamir highway, was built by the Russians to keep the area under control.
As such there was a great Russian & later Soviet military presence in the region, with all the attendant economic benefits to the inhabitants. With the break up it lost all this, with the civil war it lost all support from the central government. Years of not having to supply itself lead to a state that it grew only 30% of what it ate, even after several years of peace & large amounts of aid this figure is not at 100% I'm told. No-one starves here these days due to the efforts of the Aga Khan Foundation & an alphabet soup of aid agencies active in the region. Hopefully this also includes me, though I expect I'll need to pay for my meals myself, at least most of the time.

Towards the end of the day the M41 (that I'd been following from Dushanbe & that would soon turn into the Pamir highway) peeled away from the Rasht river valley & started climbing. I passed through a police checkpoint at which the details of my passport, visa & permit to visit the region were noted down in a ledger. Soon afterwards I passed by a moderate sized prosperous looking village where I bought some dugh & milk, for the latter there was a small wait while they milked the cow. I got another 10km & 500m of altitude up before finding a reasonably secluded camping spot beside a river to drown out the sound of traffic, in the unlikely event that anything should pass before dawn when I get up.

I cycled 68 km in 7 hours & 27 minutes
Total so far 7342 km in 108 days
GPS Coordinates of end point - N 38°41.467, E 70°42.261