Spring Has Sprung In Dushanbe - Mostly

As I mentioned, I returned to Dushanbe from Bishkek to find beautiful spring weather and Stephanie and I took full advantage of it.

On Saturday, after I got my haircut, we went over to the main park to enjoy the warm weather and read. While there, we checked out a couple of the huge construction projects going on in Dushanbe. Apparently, with the 20th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union approaching in September, the government wants to build a number of shiny new buildings to mark the occasion. Where the money is coming from is anyone's guess.

One of the places we looked at is the monstrosity of a library that's going up adjacent to the park. It's funny, there are a number of construction projects that seem to be virtually at a stand still - buildings that have barely added a floor or two the entire time we've been here. But the library has gotten this far in about 6 months. I have no idea where they'll get enough books to fill the place.

Another big project is the construction of the world's tallest flagpole. I believe that Baku, in Azerbaijan currently holds the title and Dushanbe's flag will beat it by about 9 feet at over 540 ft tall.

It's sure to be impressive, although I can't say that I understand why Central Asia's poorest country needs to spend money building the world's tallest flag.

Another great ongoing project is Central Asia's largest teahouse. It's going up rapidly alongside the Hyatt. There is a great aerial photo from Google Earth that has been making the rounds in the Dushanbe community.

After our time in the park, we had a nice lunch and then headed home to relax before going to a farewell party for one of my colleagues. On the way home, we even spotted the first daffodils coming up outside of the parliament building.

On Sunday, Stephanie went for a tennis lesson while I got started on our garden. Since we know we'll be here through the end of August, I figure it's worth doing again so that we can have some fresh veggies not found on the local market. Surprisingly, my collard greens from last fall survived the entire winter and we now have a bumper crop on the way to start things off. We're still working our way through the berries we froze last summer, but are low on the greens.

Amazingly, we're already half way through another week and are busy making plans for the Navruz holiday (Persian New Year), which occurs next Monday and Tuesday. It's been cold and rainy the last couple of days, but hopefully things will clear up by then. It's hard to believe that this time last year, we were heading off to our Uzbekistan adventure.

This evening, Stephanie and I went to see a dance performance that combined a small troupe from the U.S. with a couple of local dance groups. The songs ranged from "All the Single Ladies" to traditional Tajik music, to some odd 60's montages. And in case you were wondering, "All the Single Ladies" was performed by one of the local groups.