Said and Jan sorting seed

Once back in Dushanbe we had a lot of sorting, cleaning and recording to do with our collection that numbered over 360 accessions. We were given a room out at the Agriculture Research and Germplasm Centre where we had space to clean and divide up our collection to be split amongst ICARDA, Tajikistan, Russia's, Vavilov Institute and NZ Agriculture.

I'd like to take the opportunity to publicly thank Dr Ken Street and ICARDA for what has been an amazing experience. To everyone at the Ag Academy in Tajikistan, in particular Mirullo Amonulloyen, Mavlon Pulodov and Zebuniso Muminshoyeva who, without them and their invitation it would have not been possible to go and find out how truly beautiful the Tajik people and its lands are. The nuts and bolt of our crew, Said “DJ” Jafar (greatest cook going round), Imondod and Sharif who kept the vans going and did a fantastic job; I don't think I could have changed the pinion gear out of a diff while on the side of the road quite as quick as those guys.

Zane and Sergey hard at work

To the collection team of Jose Piggin, Jan Konopka, Zane “Jet” Webber and Courtney “Omada Jon” Fullilove who made this trip that much more enjoyable and informative because of their involvement, thanks for your company on this fantastic adventure.

It is at this point special mention must be made to Sergey “Scout” Shuvalov who has been our guide and interpreter during our stay. His good humour, knowledge of the area and professional nature were second to none and complemented this trip perfectly. It is obvious to me now why Ken and many of the Tajik people who were involved in this trip greeted him warmly and held him in high regard. Thank you.

 

Back to Dushanbe

 We had a long day in the van to get back to Dushanbe but we managed a stop at Said-Jafar's home in Faizabad. Said was our chef on the trip and studies at the Agriculture Academy in Dushanbe.

At the top of a hill on his property we found a large stand of Agelopes cylindrica (bottom right) and triuncialis (right) as well as some Hordeums including bulbosum (bottom left) that has, as the name implies, a bulb beneath the soil. All are related to wheat and barley in some way. Hard to believe when you see some of them.

That's why they call it weed

After Khorog we began heading back out of the Pamirs stopping at sites as we went. It was always nice to get out of the car and walk around in a new area collecting crops and seeing them bundled up ready to thrash or be stored for the winter. For me it has been a step back in time to see crops harvested by hand.

My tent and a nice patch of cannabis (bottom right)

Our last stay was up the Yazgulem River. There was a lot of corn being grown in one of the villages and not a lot of wheat to pick from. I rolled out my tent like always, oblivious to a large quantity of cannabis I'd just moved next door to. The stuff grows wild around here like, well, a weed. There were a few photos taken of me sitting in front of my tent before I realised what was going on.

Shakheera Valley

Using Khorog as a base we made our way up the Shakheera (Sharkdara) Valley where we had to walk across a cable bridge to get to a small village. During the visit we found an unusual wheat that looked more like a two row barley. The farmer only had a little of the seed but told us it came from further up the valley. Jose Piggin, our travelling expert, felt it was some type of old world wheat or a land race. That's the problem with genes; you just don't know what's inside.

Organic Hedgehog

The Pamirs has some stunning vistas and no matter where you look there's something to photograph. From mud brick huts, the weathered faces of the farmers we met or the beautiful children full of fun provided plenty to photograph. The huts that we saw were plain looking from the outside but inside they were spacious and comfortable with walls and floors adorned in beautifully detailed rugs. On many occasions we would have dinner or lunch with a relation or friend of someone in the group. 

In some homes there would be a spiky little bush, no bigger than a dinner plate, at the door way or somewhere near. The little bush grows high in the mountains and is believed to ward off evil and bad luck; I doubt if you sat on this little organic hedgehog you would be inclined to agree. 

 We had one in our van for most of the trip and it was only when a hitch hiker who had some seriously nasty body odour got in. That's when things started going pear shaped. His smell, which I'm sure he had been working on for weeks, must have over powered our little plants ability to do it's job. Apart from the bad luck of having this smelly individual in our van we had a break down and Courtney (my fellow mission member and car companion) got sick. I have to admit she was a bit ill before the guy got in but he was enough to set her off on a spray. Once he got out he had trouble shutting the car door and after three attempts we found our little bush mangled. I like to think it tried to jump out and bite him but got caught in the door. Upon saving it our little bush was safe and sound and what do you know, things got back to normal.

The beautiful people of Tajikistan

Many of the Tajik people speak more than one language, in fact the Pamiris people speak their own language separate to Tajik. Most speak Russian with only a few who speak English; those that do are typically young.

From time to time we would see men wearing their traditional hats but most of the young men wore western style clothing. Many of the women, if not all, wore brightly coloured clothes and can be quite stunning in appearance.

I've been struck at how often many Pamir people will give up their possessions to help someone out. Often as we travelled we would stop to pick up someone on the side of the road between villages and collections. One day while we were having lunch after collecting wheat in a nearby field, we were given a flat brown rye bread that was still warm and was some of the tastiest bread I think I've ever eaten. After this a large bowl of apricots appeared. It was a classic example of the generosity that followed us everywhere we went.

4200 metre marmots

Much of our time was spent following the Panj until we got to Khorog, from there we made the climb up to Alichur village, some 4200 metres above sea level. We passed some salt lakes along the way and saw marmots quite often. They are very shy and fast (for an over grown hamster) making them hard to get a good photo of them.They must be tough to live up in these mountains.

We left the marmots to it and went over the pass to follow the Ghundt River valley making our way to Novabod, collecting as we went with the plan to make a loop and return to Khorog for a few days.