In the valleys of Delolo, in South West Tajiksitan, Bunafsha Nasreddinova, 44, fills her bucket with water from the newly built tapstands. Now this precious commodity flows in abundance in fresh, clean quantities but Bunafsha sadly remembers the days when there was no clean water;

“I remember the water sources were not clean and I got typhoid. I was pregnant at the time and received treatment for typhoid throughout my pregnancy. I remember having a fever with high temperature and no appetite but as my kids were young I had to leave hospital and continue my treatment at home. My baby died when he was born and the doctors told me it was from drinking unsafe water.”

Water-borne diseases such as typhoid and dysentery used to be common in the village. Bunafsha’s children also suffered from ill-health due to dirty water.

‘My kids had diarrhea, often in summertime as they used to drink un-boiled water, as they’d come in from the yard thirsty’.

Bunafsha has to take care of her six children alone as her husband and son are working in Russia.

‘My husband is in Russia working as a construction worker. The work is very difficult and affects his health. He has a lot of arthritis but he is forced to go as we need think about the future of our kids and their weddings.”

For Bunafsha, the burden of water fell on her shoulders;

‘Before the water source was a long distance away. My kids and I fetched water using a donkey. We spent one hour walking to the water source and one hour walking back’.

Spending so much time collecting water had an impact on her children’s schooling.

‘As we spent so much time collecting water the children were often late for classes. They were often too tired and did not want to go to school – they lost interest. I wanted them to go, but the priority was to have water at home’.

Bunafsha found it difficult to make water last, particularly with having six children.

‘With six children it was hard to measure and save water. All housework needs water. Sometimes I asked for a bucket of water from my neighbour’.

With support from Oxfam, who installed new water systems in her village, Bunafsha is now able to access safe drinking water.

‘I was very happy to hear that I will have water in my house. I now have more time to take care of my children and grow food on my small piece of land’.

Oxfam has trained people in the village to teach others about the importance of water and sanitation.

‘My children now have a better understanding of the importance of saving water, as the tap is in our yard has a water meter. I pay one Somoni per one meter squared cubic (14p). I am happy with this, and I am ready to pay more, as I know that my kids will not suffer anymore collecting water.’

‘Women in the village are happy that we now have water! Before we left our children sleeping and ran to fetch water, or when we were cooking we had to leave the soup boiling to collect water.’

For Bunafsha, access to water means her children now have the chance to gain an education;

‘They attend school and are never late now. My younger daughter is six and now sees how much time her elder sister is spending over her books instead of fetching water. Her sister is helping her to learn letter and numbers. I want them to be educated and find a good job in the future.’

I’d add that the victory in the Great Patriotic War, it is a great victory in the battle against fascism, but not winning the war against it. The battle with the nationalistic manifestations is still ongoing, and the activities of various activist organizations against neo – fascists serves us as a proof. Citizens of the world should be alert to such manifestations of the human mind, and stop them.

Local audience has not heard such quality rock-funk for a long-long time. Please see bellow the photo reportage from the concert. It is also important to mention the opening band The Children of Dushanbe city with its soloist Roma Buryak, more known as Roma

Here I would like to present one concept that can possibly help the situation. As an example for the concept explanation I will take the traditional music genre Madoh  (Maddoh in Tajik; literary means “glorification” ) – music of religious, mystical character. Let the ethnomusicologist not abuse me as it will be more correct to call madoh not a genre but a song cycle. Madoh is spread in mountainous Badakshan (East of Tajikistan) and  mostly performed during different religious practices and during  mourning.  Madoh is played by men from the sunset till late in the night during several days after a person death. A madoh song is usually accompanied with traditional music instruments, such  as daf (traditional drum), rubab and setor (string instruments).

In the video provided to the present article you have a unique chance to watch the public perfomance of the genre. The point is that the genre has a quite  narrow practical application in the society, bears sacred character. Madoh is not “for the general public use”, but for the “home use” only. You may rearly witness such a performance in public.

The uniquness is in the fact, that in our case the none-public genre is becoming public; played at the concert and attended by the general audince that bought tickets for the concert (or received invitations).

I would mention that madoh is not one of the genres that are at danger of disappearing. Madoh is actively practiced, and it is playing its social, or better to say, religious function.  But taking the concert as an example, we may see the concert that is bringing the music genre in the public sphere, when the genre  is becoming actual out of its original frame.
Such a concept can be effectively used in the cases of other genres that are “going out of the trend”, but still having esthetic or even social potential.  Trying to preserve traditional music in such a way, we risk influencing its initial aim. But actualization of such genres may be the only way out for them.

The concept may even not  solve the problem of the disappearing genres because even this method requires certain intellectual and financial resources for its realization. But local implementation of such a concept may artificially continue the live time of some genres till some favorable conditions (political, social, and economic) will allow to give the genres second live.

(Photos and video by Loki, from the concert of traditional Pamirian music, at Zabuniso cinema. Dushanbe, December 2012))

I got ticket for the event for free. If I had to by the ticket I would doubt to go to the concerts or not, because the price was quite high for a rap concert in Dushanbe – 30 Tajik somoni (it is approximately 6,2 USD).  I think it is because of the price  there was little people  at the concert.

Actually the concert was not a  concert only, but a contest for a best rap singer. The prize for the winner was provided by one of the sponsors with the  representative Mr. Kirill Kuzmin – coordinator of the music activities of Bactria Cultural Centre. A cool studio microphone was  the prize for the winner.

The concert was organized on a good level,  that is quite surprising for Dushanbe. Even if sometime the sound engineer did not care for what is going on the stage, the sound was generally good.

Unfortunately I could not understand the most rest of the lyrics of the rap singers, because i do not   understand fast speech in Tajik, that is why I cannot  truly say what Tajik rap sings about.  There were couple of compositions in Russian language. I would say that I was happy with the content of some osngs in Russian. I was happy with the song by a local improviser Anton Rodin who sang song about the bad practice of musicians that are promoting light drugs.

Despite the fact that quite famous local rap singers  took part in the concert  the prize won  a young singer Roma. Good job Roma!

As I have already said I could not understand the most rest of the lyrics and that is why I asked a Tajik speaking fried on the meaning of some lyrics. The answer was “Love”. It is good that in one of the poorest countries  of CIS people can still sing about love.

I would like to thank the organizer of the concert Shon Kurbono, –  young music manage of the Bactria Cultural Centre music management fellowship program. This organizer is becoming a real guru of the events with alternative music in Dushanbe.

Love each other!

  Thanks for the fotos to the media fellows of the media fellowship of Bactria Cultural Centre

Music ban Samo, music band Jeray, Davlatiyor Gulamoydanov, Tolib Saodatkadamov, Madish Davronov.

Watch our previous video, prepared by bloggers in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Also, we have published photo report on the celebration of Nowruz in the European Parliament.

And today we want to show the Nowruz video-report by our Tajik blogger Loki from the streets of Dushanbe

Enjoy!

Fotos by N. Azizova

I have already written about the Central Asian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Bien­nale of contemporary art that will take place on June, 2013. Specifically I have told about the  presentation of the pavilion that took place On February 20th, 2013 in Almaty (Kazakhstan)

As I have previously promised that will tell about the artistic work of the Tajik artist. The work will be part of the Central-Asian Pavilion.

I have visited Anton Rodin and Sergey Chutkov, the authors of the project called Letters from Tajikistan. I asked the guys to tell about their project.

Anton, could you please tell me about your artistic project?

Sergey, could you tell please how have you come to the idea of your project, and where is the link of the project with the concept of the curators of the pavilion Ayatgali Tuleubek and Tiago Bom. Where is the link between curators’ metaphor that is created on  Abai’s poem “Winter”?   

Sergey: We are concerned about the situation in our country. Haven taken the path of people with critical ideas we are constantly full of intention to criticize our own thoughts and steps as well as things that are happening around. This coldness and ruthlessness in our community hurts us because the Winter portrayed in Abai’s poem is about to take stage, if not taken it already. The problems cross all the levels of social and public life in Tajikistan. People with different cultural, ethnic, social, religious backgrounds and generations share the same space – physical and ideological but are isolated and do not understand each other. They do not communicate with people beyond their usual circles; they simply don’t want to hear them. Or aren’t they even trying to hear their voices? Or maybe we just don’t understand them?

These questions reflect our aspiration to understand and comprehend ideas and intentions of people around us (people who do not have access to public platforms of discussions). We want to create a platform for mutual understanding. We are creating it for various social strata. We made it for ourselves.

What and how people different from us are thinking about? What is the cause of the things that are happening? Is it about the way we think? Even if we use the same notions of everyday life, why do we still fail to understand one another? Where is the borderline separating the end of a dialogue and beginning of stone fight? For us, this is a research project, investigating links between the ideas that people stand for and how these ideas get corrupted or misinterpreted in the process of communication.

In the meantime, for us this project is about reflecting on the situation in Tajikistan.  We made every effort to avoid any degree of subjectivity in this reflection and offer the project participants to write on any matter they think is important. So they are invited to write letters from Tajikistan. An important part of this research is in exploring religious radicalization that is manifested as an effect of social segregation, bad access and quality of education and no social services for people. We aspire to understand what will be the outcomes of this situation. Will they be similar to the events in Iran in 1978-79? What role people of Tajikistan play in this dynamic? We, you, people around us?

It is also crucial that we understand suitability of that small action, intellectual resistance and discourses taken by the citizenry. What are we, supposed to do and how are we supposed to live as citizens, common people, artists? What should we do? Take action or wait for the winter to come to an end, hoping that the end of the winter will give us…

Thanks the guys for the interesting conversations. I would add that more information (also in English) about the project Letter from Tajikistan you may find at the official page of the project in Facebook. There you may also talk to the authors of the project. Write letters ladies and gentlemen!

Enjoy!