Bureaucratic Bullshit

Since the first week of arriving in Tajikistan Juno and I have been planning to take a 9 day Niva (Russian 4wd) tour through the Pamirs – the eastern half of southern Tajikistan comprising almost half the country – a mountain range rivaled in size only by the neighboring Hindu Kush and Himilayas. Good thing we started planning this over a month ago with Tajik bureaucracy looming higher than the former-Communism Peak ((now Somoni Peak), at around 23,000 feet, it is the highest mountain in the former Soviet Union).

Goulya, our fearless organizer, runs a nice eco-tour operation, if only she could have more customers. See, Tajikistan does everything in it’s power to keep tourists from contributing their cash to the hurting Tajik economy from getting a visa to arrive in the country to finding a way into the country (only Tajik Air can fly here) to travel within the country (you’ve heard about the roads).

The Pamirs lie in a region called the Gorno-Badakhshankaya Avtonomnaya Oblast (or GBAO for short). The GBAO sits in an area between Kyrgyzstan, China, and Afghanistan, though this section of Afghanistan is very narrow, with the Pamirs practically bordering on Kashmir. I’ve heard Kashmir is one of the most beautiful places on earth, so I’m hoping the Pamirs are similar. The Pamiri people are said to resemble Europeans, blonde hair and blue eyes even. We’ll see…

Created a long time ago by the Russians after negotiating the border with the British, the GBAO was the final frontier of the Russian empire. The region, due to its remoteness and the high percentage of ethnic minorities and refugees, was granted a semi-autonomous status by the Russians, which continued throughout the Soviet period into today.

What does this mean now? Not much - except that you need a special visa to go there. And a visa that takes over 3 weeks to receive (remember what I said before about inefficiency? Here’s a prime example). We apply immediately. Jill, our travel companion from the XXX office in Ferghana, also applies.

After 4 weeks we find out that Jill’s visa is denied! Why? Who knows? She sends her passport to Dushanbe for one final attempt. Jamshed, the “fixer” in XXX’s Dushanbe office, goes to the proper ministry and manages to get her visa in a day. But still no word on our visas.

A few days later we find out our visas have also been denied! This being 1 week ago from today – we need to go to Dushanbe for the trip tomorrow. We quickly cast out a call to all internationals in Khujand “Do you know anyone traveling to Dushanbe tomorrow?” Our buddy Henk from XXX is going, so we give him our passports and pray for luck.

Jamshed gets our passports first thing Friday morning in Dushanbe and heads to the ministry to begin the process anew. As of Monday, still no word. Our frustration mounts. By Tuesday the president has arrived in Khujand, the power is out in Juno’s office so phones don’t work – we are in the dark. The good news travels by cell-phone though - no crappy communist infrastructure can get in the way of 21st century technology! We’ve won the cold war – our visas are approved.

Now how do we get our passports back? Normally they can be sent with someone traveling on the plane and picked up at the airport. But with the President tooling around, no one knows if planes are flying or if we can reach the airport to pick them up. We lose a day, but by 5pm they should arrive in Chkalovsk, the town outside Khujand with the airport. Not so. One final dash of salt in the wound – the President’s leaving town. No flights in or out until 11pm. Poor Khushed, our fearless driver and “semi-Fixer” (he’s too nice to be a full-fledged fixer), I’m sure he really wanted to spend his whole evening sitting in this radioactive slum (Chkalovsk was a closed city during Soviet times where the uranium mined in nearby villages was processed (see C below)).

Of course, losing days waiting for the visa we lose precious time in buying our plane tickets for tomorrow morning to Dushanbe – plus we need to buy a ticket for Jill and we haven’t a copy of her Tajik visa (required to buy plane tickets here). Miraculously Khurshed manages to buy tickets for all of us, including Jill, for Friday morning (with a mysterious additional cost of $17. But hey, who’s asking?)