Sur les routes des Kirghizes Afghans
Inventing the Silk Roads
Ptukh, Wakhan Corridor. Bactrian camels tread pathways that Marco Polo reportedly walked on. © 2015 Tobias Marschall
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The Khan's Son
Motorcycles were recently brought to the Pamirs on yaks three years ago. Made in Iran, China or Pakistan, the engines provide valuable support to herding activities on the large valleys. Music is often plaid loud on their speakers to the agreement of everybody's ears.
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A Pastoral Existence
Breeding flocks requires patience as only slow and minute drive of the herd ensures its growth. Agile goats lead the way for slower and voracious sheep, both species complementing each other in their abilities and needs. The risks are as high as the reward, since a bad climatic event can decimate more than half of a herd that can otherwise rapidly multiply its original size.
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Talismans on Fragile Beings
"Children are a rare gift," as the saying goes among Afghan Kyrgyz. In the Pamir, the back of children are pinned with talismans for their health at times when good care becomes useless. During winter, the harsh climate is marked with lows reaching easily -40° C and summers are made of only two months over 0° C.
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Bling bling and Exhuberance
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The Trader and the Khan
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Speaker and Daughter
Mullah Abdylhak, a respected religious leader, took the role of speaker for his peers. An interview we shot together upon the death of past leader (khan) in 2018 made the headlines in Kyrgyz newspapers and reinstated new energies to the then dormant “repatriation“ program initiated in 2006.
Homework
Teachers move upland in summer for three months and teach in the local school. The curriculum consists basically of Dari, Geography, Maths and History. Only boys attended, contrary to the NGO's promises to educate girls. Several organisations and the Afghan state sponsor the institutions that mene old and successful pupils to highschools in the district capital.
Smoke in Thin Air.
Parallel to opium, cheap cigarettes make their way upland in large boxes. Heavy smokers there are, claiming two packs a day, despite hypoxia. I quit smoking following my first journey upland. #afghanistan #Pamir #Smoke #Cigarette #gold #portrait #addiction #thinair #neverstopexploring
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Winter Pastoralism
Early morning, on our way to the Little Pamir. 5th day walk. We brought the yack herd of our hosts out to the pastures. Wolves are less a threat for yaks and can be left for some while without surveillance. Herding necessitates however constant management, impossible to leave the camps fo a while. If Afghan Kyrgyz settled the Little Pamir, it is a greater issue for Wakhi who leave families for 6-8 months a year down in the lowlands. Small camps of men only from which curious jokes and stories abound.
Dry Rain over the Little Pamir
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The Right Hand
Milk tea, rock salt, bread and this time exceptionally some cheese. A typical serving and our daily diet in the Pamirs. Evenings, some rice and a piece of meat. Lack of vitamins is a matter of course that the specially enriched flour and rice people provision poorly helps compensate. Bread and tea, as well as lodging are prompted for free and without request to any traveler, tourists excepted, in the Pamirs. Small gifts and trust in trade are but tacitly expected.
No sugar but a bit of salt, simply pour your fried bread (borsook) in tea. Hands are marked by the sun and works but also mark trust or friendship in tending to the same meal, embracing another hand, etc. It would be impure or disrespectful to reach with the left. Works and preferences are realized with a touch of arbitrariness.