10 Interesting Facts About Tajikistan

1. Did you know that between Mars and Jupiter, there is a planet called “Tajikistan”? The contribution of Tajik scientists to the development of world astrophysics was so high, as a result of which the planet named in honour of their country. Hence, there is another Tajikistan around 250 million kilometres away from us.

2. Lake Iskenderkul in Tajikistan means “Lake Alexander” in the local language. As the main charm of the country, various legends exist about the lake. One of them tells that during the campaign, Alexander the Great came across a village that did not want to surrender. Eventually, he ordered to direct the river to the village to flood it, as a result of which Iskanderkul Lake formed.

3. Beauty standards vary from culture to culture. In Tajikistan you will see most of the women sporting a unibrow. Unibrows are considered highly attractive in the country and the girls who have separate eyebrows often paint them to create an illusion.

4. Dushanbe is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan and is actually named after a day of the week. Dushanbe means Monday in the Tajik language. It was named so because it grew from a village that originally had a popular market on Mondays.

5. Though Tajikistan has a very high literacy rate of nearly 98%, employment rate is very poor. Nearly 47% of Tajikistan’s GDP comes from remittances by its people living abroad.

6. The terrain of Tajikistan is highly mountainous with 90% of the country being covered with tall mountains. At over 7,000m high, the Pamir Mountains are known locally as the “Roof of the World”. At 3,186m, Tajikistan has the world’s highest average elevation after Bhutan and Nepal.

7. The Nurek Dam located on the Vakhsh River is the world’s second-tallest man-made dam. It is located in western Tajikistan and has a total height of 300 meters. The Nurek Dam only lags behind the Jinping-I Dam of China that has a height of 305 meters.

8. Tajikistan’s dictator was filmed singing drunk at his son’s wedding in 2013 and the clip was posted on YouTube. In response, he banned YouTube from the country.

9. Russian soldiers are reported to have seen the Abominable Snowman or the ‘Yeti’ in the Pamir Mountain ranges in Tajikistan. The legend of the Yeti is still considered to exist in Tajikistan.

10. Tajikistan created a law to limit the amount of people one can invite to a party or a gathering based on the household income in an effort to prevent people and families from bankrupting themselves.

Explified