Generations of social tradition
Before Sitora Nabieva leaves home to lead groups of visitors around Tajikistan, she first rings her father Alijon and mother Rakhbar to get their permission.
"My mum and dad will wish me well for the journey," she says. And off she goes, taking people to the heart of Central Asia and the Silk Road.
Sitora might be an experienced and respected guide but she still feels she needs her parents' permission before she goes to work.
Respect for parents, she says, is very important and never changes. "They are always your parents. If they say no, it's no."
We have driven a little way out of Dushanbe to Hissar, where there is a fortress that used to be a palace, and in little rooms in the madrassah, once an educational institution, Sitora has crouched by a baby's cradle. Away from the narrative of the guide, she is just telling a few of us about her own life and her own family.
She rocks the little cradle, made in the traditional way, and sings a haunting little lullaby in an unfaltering voice as she does it.
"In the winter, you can cover it, for warmth," she says, pulling the little fabric blind forward. "And look . . ." She lifts the pad mattress, which has a small, circular hole in it, to reveal a little terracotta toilet bowl. "Different for boy and girl," she says.
It's ingenious. Someone asks if it works. Sitora shrugs with an apparent cold distain that is very much a cool, straight-faced mannerism of the Soviet era she grew up in. For it was only with the Soviet collapse of 1991 that Tajikistan got its independence. And in that dismissive mannerism I clearly read the reply . . . "Of course it works - we've been doing it for generations."
She sings again and then continues thinking about and talking about family.
Her grandmother, Nahminiso, is 94 years old. "When they are old we are taking care of them. It would be shame on us if we didn't. People would laugh at us." (The word laugh comes ominously, with force, from the back of her throat.)
But there's worse. "If we said we couldn't look after the old people, our neighbours would say 'If you won't, we will look after them'." The shame in that is almost indescribable. "And so we are five generations," Sitora says more brightly . . . "All together."
I can see them now, in their little homes, here in the heart of Central Asia. Tajikistan is landlocked, more than 90 per cent of it mountainous, little visited by tourists and, while those in all the "Stans" around it speak Turkic languages, it is unusual for its Persian Farsi language. Despite bordering China to its east and Uzbekistan to its west, Tajikistan shares language and history with Afghanistan to its south.
It has certainly been inhabited continuously for 6000 years.
I feel very comfortable here. I like immaculate Dushanbe, its capital of around 700,000 people. Saturday is cleaning day. "Everybody comes out and shares the territory, sweeping and planting trees and flowers for free," Sitora says.
I like Dushanbe's wide, poplar-lined streets and many peaceful parks, watered by open channels fed by the water coming off the mountains which dominate the horizon.
To the north, the Pamir Mountains rise in a massive knot as the Himalayas, Hindu Kush ranges and Tian Shan mountains come together. The Pamirs' highest peak is nearly 7500m.
The city is full of higher education campuses in a country that values knowledge (and where uni students wear uniform) and it sits among the fields of cotton that is one of its most important exports, along with the workers who go to Russia to send money back to their families. That alone is said to represent more than 35 per cent of gross domestic product.
There are wheat, rice and apricots - spring rains, very hot summers, autumn harvest and lots of snow in winter. The country is driven by hydro-electric power, the country roads around Dushanbe lined with mulberry trees - food of silk worms, here on part of the Silk Road.
For lunch there is the traditional dish of plov in the old Rokhat teahouse, with its beautifully carved and painted ceiling. Plov is the national dish - rice, shredded yellow turnip or carrot, and pieces of meat fried together in oil.
Tonight we sit out at tables in a park while skewers of shashlik are cooked over charcoal. The evening is still, scented. All around me, there are families - generations out together, in the still night.
fact file *
·Stephen Scourfield spent time in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as part of the Five Stans tour by Travel Directors. The Five Stans is one of Travel Directors' newest tours, visiting Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The next departure is from May 3-May 30 and the tour costs from $13,950 twin share. This includes all flights between Australia and Kazakhstan/ Turkmenistan and Australia, all internal flights, accommodation, most meals, highlights and surprises, Travel Directors tour leader, guides, visas and gratuities. traveldirectors.com.au, 137 Cambridge Street, Leederville,
1300 856 661 and 9242 4200.
·China Southern Airways flies direct between Perth and Guangzhou and connects with 190 destinations in 40 countries, offering full-service flying at low prices. Visit csair.com.au or phone 1300 889 628 during business hours. Its office is open at Suite 4, Level 2, 3 De Vlamingh Avenue (off Adelaide Terrace), East Perth from 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, or ask travel agents.
In Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Stephen Scourfield was a guest of Travel Directors and China Southern Airways.
