Tajikistan - A struggling post-Soviet State

Tajikistan is a former Soviet State. This lives on in the form of language (Russian being one of the official languages), infrastructure (ah, that lovely Soviet architecture), and systems. But it clearly has its own Tajik identity, culture and poverty (unfortunately). Someone said today that when the Soviets came to Tajikistan the country went directly from being an agrarian society to a modern one, skipping the social and cultural changes that accompanied the industrialization phase in many other countries. So when the Soviets left, a lot of the reforms that had been made (in, for example, women's rights and education) were not prioritized, and the country has since begun to glide back into traditional values. Unfortunately, this has meant that girls are dropping out of school sooner than boys, a shift that goes against development achievements in neighboring countries and that will eventually have an effect on the health of their children and their own future economic empowerment.

Apparently, there is some nostalgia for the old Soviet system and its stability/predictability. Apparently, during the Soviet times people would go to the bakers and buy a half a loaf of bread in the morning because they knew there would be another half to buy freshly baked in the evening. Now they buy whole loaves at a time in the fear that they next time they go there won't be bread.

In essence, as one person told me today, the sovietization of Tajikistan really was a "europization" of the country, both in terms of social issues (like women's issues) but also infrastructure. Nowhere is this more clear apparently than on the border with Afghanistan where one sees power lines and roads up to the border and then nothing on the other side...