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Dushanbe is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. As of February 2023, Dushanbe had a population of 1,228,400, with this population being largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as Stalinabad, after Joseph Stalin. Dushanbe is located in the Hisar Valley, bounded by the Hisar Range in the north and east and the Babatag, Aktau, Rangontau and Karatau mountains in the south, and has an elevation of 750–930 m. The city is divided into four districts: Ismail Samani, Avicenna, Ferdowsi, and Shah Mansur.
In ancient times, what is now or is close to modern Dushanbe was settled by various empires and peoples, including Mousterian tool-users, various neolithic cultures, the Achaemenid Empire, Greco-Bactria, the Kushan Empire, and Hephthalites. In the Middle Ages, more settlements began near modern-day Dushanbe such as Hulbuk and its famous palace. From the 17th to early 20th century, Dushanbe grew into a market village controlled at times by the Beg of Hisor, Balkh, and finally Bukhara, before being conquered by the Russian Empire. Dushanbe was captured by the Bolsheviks in 1922, and the town was made the capital of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924, which commenced Dushanbe's development and rapid population growth that continued until the Tajik Civil War. After the war, the city became capital of an independent Tajikistan and continued its growth and development into a modern city, today home to many international conferences.
Much of Dushanbe's education system dates from Soviet times and has a legacy of state control; today the largest university in Dushanbe, the Tajik National University, is funded by the government. Dushanbe International Airport is the primary airport serving the city. Other forms of transport include the trolleybus system dating from 1955, the small rail system, and the roads that traverse the city. Dushanbe's electricity is primarily hydroelectric, produced by the Nurek Dam, and the aging water system dates from 1932. Tajikistan's healthcare system is concentrated in Dushanbe, meaning that the major hospitals of the country are in the city. The city makes up 20% of Tajikistan's GDP and has large industrial, financial, retail, and tourism sectors. Parks and main sights of the city include Victory Park, Rudaki Park, the Tajikistan National Museum, the Dushanbe Flagpole, and the Tajikistan National Museum of Antiquities.
Dushanbe was the location of a large bazaar that operated every Monday (in Tajiki Persian: Душанбе old sc. دوشنبه lit. 'the second day [دو du] following Saturday [شنبه shanbe]') named simply Душанбе Бозор Dushanbe-Bazar (o. s. دوشنبه بازار) In late 1929, the city was renamed Stalinabad (the city of Stalin), but was reverted late 1961 as a result of de-Stalinization.
In the Stone Age, Mousterian tool-users inhabited the Hisar Valley near modern-day Dushanbe. The Hisar culture, whose stone tools were discovered within modern-day Dushanbe at the confluence of the Varzob and Luchob, Bishkent culture, and Vakhsh culture all were thought to have inhabited the valley in the second millennium BC, during the Neolithic period, and were primarily involved in cattle breeding, agriculture, and weaving.
Near Dushanbe International Airport, Bronze Age burials were discovered dating from the end of the second to the beginning of the first millennium BC. Achaemenid dishes and ceramics were found 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) east of Dushanbe in Qiblai, as the city was controlled by the Achaemenids from the sixth century BC. Archaeological remnants of a small citadel dating to the fifth century BC have been discovered 40 kilometres (25 mi) south and wedge-shaped copper axes have been discovered from the second century BC.
The Seleucids conquered the region in 312 BC. A small Greco-Bactrian settlement of about 40 hectares (99 acres) was dated to the end of the third century BC. The oldest coin found in the city is a Greco-Bactrian coin depicting Eucratides (r. 171–145 BC) and another was found depicting Dionysus. There was also a Kushan city on the left bank of the Varzob river from the 2nd century BC to 3rd century AD containing burial sites from the time period. The Kushans created other settlements such as Garavkala, Tepai Shah, Shakhrinau, and Uzbekontepa. The Sasanian Empire invaded Sogdiana in the fifth century, possibly giving coins as tribute to the Kidarites which ended up on the site of today's city.
The ruins of a Buddhist monastery of the Hephthalite period of the late fifth to sixth century, now referred to as Ajina Tepe, lie in the Vakhsh valley near Dushanbe. Other settlements from the Tokharistan period have also been discovered, like the town of Shishikona that was destroyed during the Soviet era and depopulated during the Mongol invasion. International trade picked up during this period in the region. A castle was also discovered dating from the time period. In 582, the Western Turkic Khaganate gained control over the region. In the seventh century, a Chinese pilgrim visited the region and mentioned the city of Shuman, possibly on the site of modern Dushanbe.
After the Arab conquest, the Samanids controlled the region, which was involved in crafts and trade, and in the 10th-12th centuries the medieval city of Hulbuk developed near Dushanbe, which notably contained the palace of the governor of Khulbuk, "an artistic treasure of the Tajik people", among other smaller medieval settlements like Shishikhona. The Kharakhanids minted coins from 1018 to 1019 found in the city. The city came under the influence of the Ghurids from the 12th to 13th centuries.
Other smaller settlements were founded during the Late Middle Ages after the Mongol invasion, such as Abdullaevsky and Shainak. Timur conquered the region during this time period and various other empires controlled the city. The city's economy started to rely more heavily on crafts and trade.
The first time Dushanbe appeared in the historical record was in 1676, in a letter sent from the Balkh khan Subhonquli Bahodur to Fyodor III, the Tsar of Russia. However, the Balkh historian Mahmud ibn Wali mentioned the area in the 1630s in the book Sea of Secrets Regarding the Values of the Noble. At first, the town was called "Kasabai Dushanbe" (Persian: قصبه دوشنبه қасабаи Душанбе), when it was under the control of Balkh. This name reflected both Dushanbe's status as a town, with Kasaba meaning town, and the influence of trade, as the name Dushanbe, which means Monday in Persian, was due to the large bazaar in the village that operated on Mondays. Dushanbe's location between the caravan routes heading east–west from the Hisar Valley through Karategin to the Alay Valley, and north–south to the Kafirnigan River and then to Vakhsh Valley and Afghanistan through the Anzob Pass from the Fergana and Zeravshan valleys that ultimately led traders to Bukhara, Samarkand, the Pamirs, and Afghanistan incentivized the development of its market. At the time, the town had a population of around 7,000–8,000 with around 500–600 households.
By 1826, the town was called Dushanbe Qurghan (Tajik: Душанбе Қурғон, Dushanbe Qurghon, with the suffix qurƣon from Turkic qurğan, meaning "fortress"). It was first Russified as Dyushambe (Дюшамбе) in 1875. It had a caravanserai, a stopping point for travelers to Samarkand, Khujand, Kulob and the Pamirs. It boasted 14 mosques with maktabs, 2 madrassas, and 14 teahouses at the turn of the 19th century. At that time, the town was a citadel on a steep bank on the left bank of the Varzob River with 10,000 residents. It was a center for weaving, tanning, and iron smelting production in the region. Various states, including Hisor, exercised control over the city during the 18th and early 19th century despite Bukharan claims of sovereignty. In 1868, the Tsarist government established suzerainty over Bukhara. In the unstable environment of Russian intervention and local revolts, Bukhara took over the Dushanbe region, control over which the Emirate was able to sustain through the gradual establishment of a Russian-influenced centralized state. The first hospital in the village was constructed in 1915 by Russian investment and an early railroad was proposed to connect the market town with the Russian railway system in 1909, but was abandoned after a review determined the venture would not be profitable, although the town did have a functioning railroad to Kagan.
In 1920, the last Emir of Bukhara briefly took refuge in Dushanbe after being overthrown by the Bolshevik revolution. After the Red Army conquered the area the next year, he fled to Afghanistan on 4 March 1921. In February 1922, the town was taken by Basmachi troops led by Enver Pasha after a siege, but on 14 July 1922 again came under the power of the Bolsheviks soon before the death of Enver Pasha on 4 August 1922 outside of Dushanbe. It was a part of the Bukharan PSR until the formation of the Tajik ASSR.
Dushanbe was proclaimed the capital of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a part of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in October 1924, and the government started to function formally on 15 March 1925.
Dushanbe was chosen instead of larger-populated villages in Tajikistan because of its role as a crossroads of Tajikistan for its large market served as a meeting place for much of Tajikistan's population. Along with its market, there was a lively livestock trade as well as trade in fabrics, leather, tin products, and weapons. The mild Mediterranean climate was another reason Soviet authorities chose the city as the capital.
Before the Emir's relocation to the city, Dushanbe had the only Jewish population in Eastern Bukhara (of about 600) whom were involved in trade and tailoring. When the Emir moved to the city in 1920, however, the Jewish population's property was plundered and the Jews were relocated to Hisor. They were only let back into Dushanbe with its conquest by the Red Army, and in the 1920s and 1930s their population gradually increased with Bukharan immigrants. Dushanbe was also officially recognized as the capital of the Emirate of Bukhara during its waning days as it served as the last refuge of the last Emir of Bukhara during its conquest by the Soviet Union, possibly another motivating factor for the decision to establish the new ASSR's capital in the village. The population during Soviet conquest and Basmachi revolts declined from an already meager 3,140 in 1920 to only 283 in 1924 with only 40 houses still standing. To aid in the recovery, the Soviet authorities temporarily exempted much of the population from having to pay taxes. In 1923, the Soviets created Dushanbe's first telegraph link to Bukhara, initiated its first railroad to Termez, and set up a telephone switchboard in 1924. On 12 August 1924, the first newspaper of the town, Voice of the East (Russian: Овози Шарк), was published in Arabic and soon after a Russian-language paper, Red Tajikistan (Russian: Красный Таджикистан), began publication. Power plants and electricity were introduced to Dushanbe during this time. By the end of 1924, the first regular plane routes from Dushanbe came into operation, with one connection to Bukhara and later one to Tashkent. The post office was also set up that year. Construction on the railroad commenced on 24 June 1926, and it was completed in November 1929, connecting Dushanbe with the Trans-Caspian railroad and kickstarting economic growth. In 1925, the first boy's boarding school was constructed in the capital. On 1 September 1927, the first pedagogical college opened in Dushanbe and in November the motor road from Dushanbe to Kulob was completed. Tajiks from the countryside were given assistance and free land plots in the capital to increase its population and development.
The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, previously the Tajik ASSR, separated from the Uzbek SSR in 1929, and its capital Dyushambe was renamed Stalinabad (Russian: Сталинабад; Tajik: Сталинобод Stalinobod) for Joseph Stalin on 19 October 1929, incorporating the nearby villages of Shohmansur, Mavlono, and Sari Osiyo.
In the years that followed, the city developed at a rapid pace. The Soviets transformed the area into a center for cotton and silk production, and tens of thousands of people relocated to the city. The population also increased with thousands of ethnic Tajiks migrating to Tajikistan from Uzbekistan following the transfer of Bukhara and Samarkand to the Uzbek SSR as part of national delimitation in Central Asia. Industry during the time period was limited, focused on local production, although it had expanded by nine times since 1913 by 1940. The first bus line began operating in 1930 and in 1938, Komsomol members constructed Komsomolskoye Lake in the city.
Many of these projects occurred under the 1925–1932 mayoralty of Abdukarim Rozykov, one of the first mayors of Dushanbe, who sought to transform it into a "model communist city" through modernization and urban planning. Mikhail Kalitin continued the industrial development of Dushanbe, building the Komsomolskoye Lake and promoting industry in the city. Towards the end of this period, in the late 1930s, there were 4,295 buildings in Dushanbe.
During World War 2, the population of Dushanbe and Tajikistan swelled with 100,000 evacuees from the Eastern Front that led to the deployment of 17 hospitals in the city. The city's industry also greatly increased during the war, as the Soviets wanted to move critical infrastructure far behind enemy lines, and industries like textile manufacturing and food processing grew. In 1954, there were 30 schools in the city; a medical institute named after Avicenna; the Stalinabad Academy of Sciences; the University of Stalinabad, which was founded in 1947 and had 1,500 students; and the Stalinabad Pedagogical Institute for Woman, established on 1 September 1953. In 1960, gas supply reached the capital through a gas pipeline opened from Kyzyl to Tumxuk to Dushanbe. On 10 November 1961, as part of de-Stalinization, Stalinabad was renamed back to Dushanbe, the name it retains to this day. In 1960, under the leadership of Mahmudbek Narzibekov, the first zoo was built in the city. Later in the decade the mayor developed a plan to end the housing shortage and provide free apartments.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Dushanbe”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.