People of Tajikistan

Ethnic groups

The area’s population is ethnically mixed, as it has been for centuries, but more than four-fifths of the population is ethnically Tajik, a proportion that rose with the emigration of non-Tajiks during the protracted civil war. The Tajiks are a traditionally sedentary people who speak a form of Persian (called Tajik) and whose culture has been significantly influenced by Central Asian sedentary culture. The name Tajik came to denote a distinct nationality only in the modern period; not until the 1920s did an official Tajik territorial-administrative unit exist under that name. Citizens of Tajikistan, regardless of ethnicity, are referred to as Tajikistanis.

On the basis of language, customs, and other traits, the Tajiks can be subdivided into a number of distinct groups. The Pamir Tajiks within the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region include minority peoples speaking Wakhī, Shughnī, Rōshānī, Khufī, Yāzgulāmī, Ishkashimī, and Bartang, all Iranian languages. Another distinct group is formed by the Yaghnābīs, direct descendants of the ancient Sogdians, who live in the Zeravshan River basin.

So closely are the Tajiks mixed with neighbouring Uzbeks that the Soviet partition of the area in 1924 failed to segregate the two nationalities with any degree of thoroughness. With nearly one million Tajiks in Uzbekistan and more than one million Uzbeks in Tajikistan, these nationalities remain in intimate, though not always friendly, interrelation. The country’s other ethnic groups include Russians, Tatars, Kyrgyz, Ukrainians, Germans, Jews, and Armenians.

Languages

Tajik is the official language and is spoken by most people in Tajikistan. A member of the southwest group of Iranian languages, it is closely related to the mutually intelligible dialects of Farsi and Dari in Iran and Afghanistan, respectively, though it differs from these dialects in that it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The dialects of the Pamirs and the Yaghnob River valley, which were classified as Tajik during the Soviet era, actually belong to the eastern group of Iranian languages; speakers of these dialects must use Tajik as a lingua franca to communicate with outsiders. Russian is widely used for administration and business, but few speak it natively. Uzbek is the second most widely spoken language and is written in the Cyrillic script, unlike in Uzbekistan where Uzbek is written in a modified Latin alphabet.

Religion

The vast majority of Tajikistanis are Muslim, mostly of the Sunni Ḥanafī school. A small percentage of Muslims are Ismaʿīlī Shiʿi, located primarily in the Pamirs. The Christian population has been predominantly Russian, but most ethnic Russians have left since the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Settlement patterns

Much of Tajikistan is unsuitable for human habitation, but those desert and semidesert lands suitable for irrigated farming have been turned into flourishing oases, with cotton plantations, gardens, and vineyards. The population density is also high in the large villages strung in clusters along the foothill regions. There are narrow valleys that support small villages (qishlaqs) surrounded by apple orchards, apricot trees, mulberry groves, and small cultivated fields.

Less than one-third of the country’s Tajiks live in urban areas, including the two largest cities, Dushanbe and Khujand. Smaller towns include the old settlements of Kŭlob, Qŭrghonteppa (Kurgan-Tyube), and Ŭroteppa (Ura-Tyube) and the newer Qayroqqum, Norak, and Tursunzoda. Russians no longer dominate Dushanbe’s ethnic mixture; they constitute less than one-third of the city’s inhabitants. In Tajikistan, as in the rest of Central Asia, there has been a general trend toward ruralization. Since 1970 the urban proportion of the population has declined, in part because the rate of natural population increase is greater among the rural population.

Most Tajiks continue to live in qishlaqs. Such settlements usually consist of 200 to 700 single-family houses built along an irrigation canal or the banks of a river. Traditionally, mud fences surround the houses and flat roofs cover them, and each domicile is closely connected with an adjacent orchard or vineyard. In the mountains the qishlaqs, sited in narrow valleys, form smaller settlements, usually 15 to 20 households. On the steep slopes the flat roof of one house often serves as the yard for the house above it. This mode of home construction makes Tajikistan’s mountain villages especially vulnerable to damage from the frequent strong earthquakes that characterize this region.

Demographic trends

The population of Tajikistan is young and growing, with a birth rate much higher than the world average and a death rate slightly lower. More than one-third of the population is under 15 years of age, and almost two-thirds is under 30. The life expectancy is 72 years for women and 65 for men.

Resources and power

Tajikistan possesses rich mineral deposits. Important metallic ores are iron, lead, zinc, antimony, mercury, gold, tin, and tungsten. Nonmetallic minerals include common salt, carbonates, fluorite, arsenic, quartz sand, asbestos, and precious and semiprecious stones. The chief mining and ore-dressing area is in the north; coal mining and oil extraction are among the oldest industries in the country. The extraction of natural gas began in the mid-1960s at Kyzyl-Tumshuk and in fields near Dushanbe, and a chemical plant built in 1967 produces nitrogen fertilizer.

Energy resources include sizable coal deposits and smaller reserves of natural gas and petroleum. Tajikistan is among the countries with the greatest potential for hydroelectric power in the world, and most of the electric power generated in Tajikistan is hydroelectric. Some of the fast-flowing mountain streams have been exploited as hydroelectric power sources. In 1976 construction began on the Rogun Dam, slated to be the world’s highest and tallest dam, with an installed capacity equivalent to that of three nuclear power plants. The project languished after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but construction resumed in 2016. Major power stations operate on the Syr Darya at Qayroqqum and on the Vakhsh River at Norak and Golovnaya. A thermal station supplements them near Dushanbe. In the summer months, the country has access to plenty of electricity and is a major exporter of electricity. In the winter, however, conditions in Tajikistan are unfavourable for the production of hydroelectric power, so the country imports electricity and relies on coal energy then.

Agriculture

Farming still leads industry in importance in the economy of Tajikistan, and cotton growing surpasses all other categories of the country’s agriculture. Other important branches include the raising of livestock—including long-horned cattle, Gissar sheep, and goats—and the cultivation of fruits, grains, and vegetables. Tajikistan’s farmers grow wheat and barley and have expanded rice cultivation. Horticulture has been important in the territory of Tajikistan since antiquity, and apricots, pears, apples, plums, quinces, cherries, pomegranates, figs, and nuts are produced. The country exports almonds, dried apricots, and grapes.

Agriculture in Tajikistan would be severely limited without extensive irrigation. By the end of the 1930s the Soviet government had built two main canals, the Vakhsh and the Gissar, and followed these with two joint Tajik-Uzbek projects, the Great Fergana and North Fergana canals, using conscripted unskilled labour in a program that drew wide criticism from outside observers for its high toll of fatalities. After World War II the Dalverzin and Parkhar-Chubek irrigation systems were built, along with the Mŭminobod, Kattasoy, and Selbur reservoirs; the Mirzachol irrigation system; and a water tunnel from the Vakhsh River to the Yovonsu Valley.

Pesticides and chemical fertilizers used on the cotton fields have damaged the environment and led to health problems in the population. The upriver irrigation systems carry these pollutants into the rivers descending from Tajikistan’s mountains and into neighbouring republics.

Manufacturing

Tajikistan’s light industry is based on its agricultural production and includes cotton-cleaning mills and silk factories; the Dushanbe textile complex is the country’s largest. Other branches of light industry include the manufacture of knitted goods and footwear, tanning, and sewing. There is a large carpet-making factory in Qayroqqum. Food-processing industries concentrate on local agricultural products, which include grapes and other fruits, various vegetable oils, tobacco, and geranium oil, which is used in perfume. The metalworking industry produces looms, power equipment, cables, and agricultural and household implements.