Dushanbe in Tajik means „Monday“. And on Monday all museums in Dushanbe are closed: a real tough hit on us...Therefore we drive to Hissar, 30km west of Dushanbe. The fortress was occupied until 1924 by Ibrahim Beg, the local henchman of the Emir of Bukhara. Once a basmachi stronghold, the fortress was destroyed by the Red Army and all that remains is a reconstructed stone gateway. In front of the fortress are two plain medressas, the 16th-century Medressa-i-Kuhna and the 17th-century Medressa-i-Nau. Next door are the foundations of a caravanserai built in 1808. All interesting but not so impressive. On the way back to the city, we buy some of „the best cherries in the world“. Looks like these people have never had any from „Baselbiet“! The road is under construction, being done by Chinese guest workers. They earn less than Tajik workers and according to our guide Sitora they are the reason there are no more frogs and stray cats and dogs in the neighborhood. And she is serious about it!
Strolling through the city center we visit nice water fountains, see impressive monuments and buildings. All again is very clean, people are nice again and want to talk to us and we feel very safe here.
Dinner at the wonderful Hyatt, working on webpage and dinner at the hotel’s restaurant (Pizza!!!)

The Tajiks, whose language is nearly identical with Persian, were part of the ancient Persian Empire that was ruled by Darius I and later conquered by Alexander the Great (333 B.C. ). In the 7th and 8th centuries, Arabs conquered the region and brought Islam. The Tajiks were successively ruled by Uzbeks and then Afghans until claimed by Russia in the 1860s. In 1924, Tajikistan was consolidated into a newly formed Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which was administratively part of the Uzbek SSR until the Tajik ASSR gained full-fledged republic status in 1929.
Tajikistan declared its sovereignty in Aug. 1990. In 1991, the republic's Communist leadership supported the attempted coup against Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. Tajikistan joined with ten other former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States on Dec. 21, 1991. A parliamentary republic was proclaimed and presidential rule abolished in Nov. 1992. After independence, Tajikistan experienced sporadic conflict as the Communist-dominated government struggled to combat an insurgency by Islamic and democratic opposition forces. Despite continued international efforts to end the civil war, periodic fighting continued. About 60,000 people lost their lives in Tajikistan's civil war. The conflict ended officially on June 27, 1997.