Kulob

Kulob is one of the oldest inhabited places in Tajikistan, and the state marked what it dated as the town's 2,700th anniversary in 2006 with a national celebration. The surrounding country, known in medieval times as Khuttal, was lay on routes between the Oxus lowlands and the mountains; the citadel of Hulbuk, south-west of the modern town, was the seat of its rulers in the 9th to 11th centuries and has been excavated and partly rebuilt.

The town's identity was fixed by a visitor from Persia. Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, a 14th-century Sufi scholar and poet born in Hamadan, travelled widely and is credited with spreading Islam and Persian craft traditions in Kashmir; he died on the journey home and was buried at Kulob, where his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. Under the emirs of Bukhara, Kulob was a bekdom, and its mountain districts were among the last to be brought under Soviet control in the 1920s.

Soviet rule brought cotton farming to the lowlands, and mountain families were resettled down on the new irrigated land. During the civil war of 1992–97 Kulob was the base of the forces that formed the government side, and people from the Kulob region have held a dominant position in national politics ever since; President Rahmon comes from nearby Danghara. Since the war the town has grown slowly, with new mosques and public buildings, while labour migration has taken much of its working-age population abroad.

Kulobi identity is strong and recognised across the country: a distinct accent, a reputation for toughness and loyalty, and an outsized presence in national politics and the security services since the civil war. People still identify one another by region of origin, and many Khatlon families trace their roots to mountain villages from which their grandparents were moved to the cotton farms.

The town is known above all for chakan, the bold embroidery of the region, sewn in bright thread on cotton or silk in patterns of flowers, suns and stars. Chakan dresses and embroidered skullcaps are worn at weddings and festivals, the craft is taught at home and in workshops, and it has become a marker of Tajikistan's national dress; in 2018 it was inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage. Suzani work and handwoven textiles are made in the surrounding districts.

Religious life centres on the shrine, which draws pilgrims from across the south and from further afield, particularly at the Eid festivals. Practice is Sunni and closely regulated by the state, and the town is more outwardly observant than the capital. Weddings are the great social occasions, with long tables, chakan dress, and dancing to the doira frame drum; Nowruz in March brings communal cooking of sumanak, sport and music to the central square.

Roughly 100,000 people live in Kulob, making it one of the larger towns of Khatlon, though it feels smaller: single-storey houses behind walls, gardens of vines and fruit trees, a few Soviet blocks, and low buildings along a single main avenue. Villages and orchards begin almost immediately beyond the edges.

The economy is farming and trade. The plains and valleys around produce cotton, wheat, melons, apricots, pomegranates and grapes; the bazaar handles the produce and the cloth and household goods brought in from Dushanbe; and administration, schools and a university provide most of the salaried jobs. As across the south, a large share of working-age men spend much of the year in Russia, and the money they send home pays for house-building, weddings and everyday costs, which makes the airport and the money-transfer offices unusually important to the town.

Days begin early, with the bazaar busiest soon after dawn and work stopping in the worst of the afternoon heat; evenings bring people to the park, the chaikhonas and each other's courtyards. Power cuts in winter, water supply, road quality and the shortage of local work are the standing concerns, and much of family life is organised around the absence and return of migrant relatives.

Kulob eats the Khatlon version of the Tajik table. Oshi palav — rice with mutton, carrot and onion cooked in a wide kazan — is the dish for guests and celebrations, cooked in huge quantities at weddings. Qurutob, the dish most associated with Tajikistan, is eaten here too: flaky fatir bread torn into a wooden bowl, soaked in a sauce of dissolved qurut, the dried salted cheese balls sold in the bazaar, and topped with onion, herbs and sometimes fried meat.

Chaikhonas serve shurbo, a mutton and vegetable soup eaten with bread; sambusa baked against the wall of a tandoor; laghmon noodles; manti; and shashlik grilled over coals with raw onion. Non, the round stamped flatbread, is baked in neighbourhood tandoors and handled with care. Chakka, strained sour milk mixed with herbs, is spread on bread, and salads of tomato, cucumber and onion come with most meals.

The orchards and fields of eastern Khatlon fill the bazaar in season with apricots, figs, pomegranates, grapes, melons and watermelons, much of it dried for winter along with almonds and walnuts. Green tea is poured continuously at every meal and every visit, sweets, nuts and dried fruit are set out for guests before the food arrives, and alcohol plays little part in the town's social life.