Thread by @cbkwgl

Tajikistan has become the centre of focus of the world these days. So, what do we know about that country? First of all, a race by name Tajik doesn't exist. Tajik in Persian means someone who is not a Turk and speaks Persian. What of Dushanbe?

Dushanbe means Monday in Persian - Dushanbe was a settlement built on a monday market site on the local trade routes. Now, this place traditionally had no distinct history though the race is attested to at least 500 BC.

There is a controversy over who they are - are they Persianized locals like the Scythians or Persian immigrants, there is no clear information. Tajikistan was just a part of the Central Asian Empires and rarely a part of the expanded Persian and Chinese Empires - Scythians,

Khwarezm and what not. Ultimately, the territory became a part of the Khanate of Bukhara. This Khanate became a vassal of Durrani Empire and was partitioned between Russia and Afghanistan in 1868. The Northern Part went to Russia and the Southern to Afghanistan.

Notice, we are still talking about an Uzbek Khanate with a considerable Persian minority split between Kokand and Bukhara.

So, what is the first breath of identity for the Tajiks? In 1924, Tajik Autonomous SSR was created inside Bukhara SSR or Uzbek SSR.

Some delimitation and the territory took a final shape in 1929 involving both Tajik ASSR and Pamir Okrug(later Gorny Badakhshan of Tajik SSR). This is the territory of the current Tajikistan.

The problem all along was, this territory was not a population centre and is not on the path of any major trade route. Neither does it have any resources. Consequently, it was pastoral and very poor. Though the Soviets tried to do something, it didn't add much value and today,

Tajikistan is the poorest of the Central Asian Republics. and its no wonder Tajikistan is one of the last to come out of USSR!! In months, the country descended into a devastating civil war between the secular government and Islamic orthodoxy clearly influenced by Afghanistan.

The country split between North and South on opposing sides of the civil war, the war dragged on for five years before a compromise was achieved with Ahmed Shah Massoud and Burhanuddin Rabbani influencing the rebels to back down.

A devastated country with no resources, the country eked on - only to be disrupted by the Taliban advance and their eventual collapse in 2001. On one side, Taliban affiliated Uzbek terrorists used Tajikistan as staging ground straining relations between both the relations and

on the other, Jamaat Ansarullah, a Tajik terrorist group made Afghanistan it's base. With not much in the name of exports except raw minerals(total exports - 1.4 billion USD), remittances from Russia(30% of GDP) form a major source of income for Tajikistan.

But, they have got one advantage. Well, its both advantage as well as a disadvantage - Turkmen Natural Gas. China's pipelines are planned through Tajikistan and that means on one side, Tajikistan has jobs and energy security and on the other, it is stuck in a Chinese Debt Trap.

Only after Karimov's death, terms with Uzbekistan started to normalize. Stuck between the overly powerful China and Russia, and the major market economy of the area, Uzbekistan and with not much resources, it needs to be seen what course Tajikistan will take in the future.