Tajikistan—Profile

(2001 est. pop. 6.6 million). The Republic of Tajikistan emerged as an independent county after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the poorest of the post-Soviet republics. It entered the twentieth century ranking 108 out of 174 countries in the Human Development Index, and with a per capita gross domestic product of only $215.4. These low figures contrast with high adult literacy rate of 95–99 percent. Tajikistan has a total area of 143,100 square kilometers. Most of its population lives in valleys, which constitute only 7 percent of country's territory. The capital of Tajikistan is Dushanbe.

Tajikistan lies in the heart of Central Asia and is bordered on the east by China, on the north and west by Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and in the south by Afghanistan. Far from seas and oceans, Tajikistan is an alpine country, with more than half the country above 3,000 meters. Geographically, Tajikistan can be divided roughly into four parts: north, east, center, and southwest. The northern part includes the Zeravshan and Syr Dar'ya River basins and consists of semidesert land and foothills. The east is alpine country, with the highest mountain ranges in Central Asia, the Pamirs and Tian Shan. This is the biggest yet least populated region of the country. Two main mountain passes leading north and east are closed by snow for several months of the year and separate the northern and eastern regions from Dushanbe, which is located in the central part of the country. Central Tajikistan stretches from the alpine border with Kyrgyzstan and the Pamir foothills in the east to the fertile Hisor valley and the border with Uzbekistan in the west. The fourth, southwestern region includes the Vakhsh and Panj River basins, and is crossed by relatively low mountain ranges.

Like other Central Asian countries, Tajikistan has a dry climate with little rainfall, so it depends on irrigation. The climate of Tajikistan is sharply continental, ranging from a low of –20°C in January to a high of 30°C in July, depending on altitude. Thanks to its snow, ice, and glaciers, Tajikistan has more then 60 percent of Central Asia's water resources.

Tajiks, an Aryan people, were the first to settle in Central Asia. Tajiks are Muslims, predominantly Sunnis of the Hanafi school. They speak Tajiki, a western Iranian language very close to Farsi and Dari of Iran and Afghanistan, respectively. Some 200,000 Shiʿa Imami Ismaili Tajiks of Badakhshan speak eastern Iranian. There are also few thousand Yaghnobi speakers living in the central part of the country. Since independence, Tajiki (written in Cyrillic script) has been the state language, while Russian is used for international communication.

The first urban settlements in what is now Tajikistan appeared 2,500 years ago, founded by peoples of Iranian origin. In the sixth to fourth centuries BCE the region was a part of the Achaemenian (Persian) empire. It was conquered by Alexander of Macedon at the end of the fourth century BCE. An amalgam of local and Hellenic cultures flourished in southern Central Asia in the fourth to the third centuries BCE. In the third century CE Central Asia fell under the control of Iranian Sasanid dynasty (224/28–651 CE). During the seventh and eighth centuries Arab troops brought Islam to the urban Tajik centers of Central Asia. Modern Tajiks trace the origins of their statehood to the Samanid dynasty (864–999), the first Muslim state in Central Asia to be independent of the Arabs. In the eleventh century, dynasties of Turco-Mongolian stock were established, pushing Tajiks to the political periphery.

The profile of today's Tajikistan was defined by Anglo-Russian competition at the end of the nineteenth century. In the 1860s, Russia had conquered the Central Asian Kokand khanate. Another Tajikpopulated state, the Bukharan emirate, became a Russian vassal in 1869. The British, meanwhile, controlled what are now Pakistan and India. Afghanistan, as a buffer state with its northern edge along the Amu Dar'ya, served as a natural defensive line between the Russian and British empires.

Soviet power was established in what is now Tajikistan in 1917–1921. In 1924, central and southern Tajikistan became an autonomous republic within the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1929 Khujand (current Sogdian) province was transferred from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan and the country given the status of a separate Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic.

Tajikistan declared its independence in September 1991. Immediately, a political struggle between a coalition of Islamic groups and newborn secular democratic movements who opposed the old Soviet elite erupted. In the brutal civil war of 1992–1993, 50,000 people lost their lives and more than 650,000—a tenth of the population—fled in terror. More than 35,000 homes were destroyed, and the total damage of the war reached $7 billion.

Talks sponsored by the United Nations in 1994–1997 led to peace and the incorporation of the United Tajik Opposition into the government. Tajikistan's constitution, adopted in 1994, declared the country to be independent, democratic, unified, and secular with separated executive, legislative, and judicial powers. Tajikistan is the only state of post-Soviet Central Asia in which an Islamic movement has opted to officially participate in the political process. The supreme legislative body is the bicameral Majlisi Oli (Supreme Council). In the November 1999 presidential elections, Emomali Rakhmonov, the leader of the People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan, won 96.91 percent of votes. His opponent from the Islamic Renaissance Party got only 2.1 percent.

After Tajikistan gained independence in 1991, its economy declined, with the gross domestic product (GDP) dropping by more than 50 percent between 1991 and 1997. In 1998, the country provided just 0.3 percent of the total GDP of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the association of former Soviet republics, putting it in last place among the former USSR states. Average monthly salary stood at $11 in 1999. According to World Bank estimates, 85 percent of Tajikistan's population live below the poverty line.

The national economy is structured as it was in Soviet times. Agriculture, represented mostly by the cotton production, is the most important sector and employs about a half the population. It is joined by some non-ferrous metallurgy, electricity generation, and light industry. In finance, a two-level bank system was created, headed by an independent national bank. In 1997, a new tax code was adopted. Privatization began in 1992 with selling of household and small enterprises, but a lack of capital and foreign investment seriously limits economic growth.

Kamoludin Abdullaev

Djalili, Mohammad Reza, Frederic Grare, and Shirin Akiner, eds. (1998) Tajikistan: The Trials of Independence. London: Curzon Press.

United Nations Development Program (UNDP). (1998) Tajikistan. Human Development Report 1998. Dushanbe, Tajikistan: United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

———. (1999) Tajikistan. Human Development Report 1999. Dushanbe, Tajikistan: UNDP.

———. (2000) Tajikistan. Human Development Report 2000. Dushanbe, Tajikistan: UNDP.

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