Photo Journal Monday: Guillaume Petermann
Project: Pamirs
Pamirs are a mountain range in Central Asia at the junction of the Himalaya, Hindu Kush and Karakoram ranges. But the word “Pamir” actually is translated from ancient Persian as “rolling pastureland” and refers to the valleys between those interconnected mountain ranges.
A “Pamir”, from a geological point of view, is a flat plateau surrounded by mountains that forms when a glacier or ice field melts leaving a rocky plain. This type of terrain is princi- pally found in the north east of Afghanistan, an area known as Wakhan Corridor and at the south west of Tajikistan known as Wakhan Valley.
The Whakan corridor in Afghanistan and the Whakan Valley in Tajikistan are deep valleys formed by the Panj River, which originates from the junction of Pamir River and Wakhan River that marks nowadays the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
This separation is the result of the geopolitical rivalry between Great Britain and the Tsarist Russia, known as “The Great Game”, which led to the dissolution of the principality of Wakhan at the end of the 19th century and the formation of the new border.
All of the Wakhan is a semi-arid zone. Agriculture is only possible through irrigation, fed by melted water in the streams descending from the mountains. Apart from occasional clusters of shrubs and other small trees, the landscape is largely barren of vegetation.
Nowadays, the Wakhan Valley in Tajikistan is the homeland of the Pamiris people also called the Pamirian or Mountain Tajiks. The Wakhan corridor in Afghanistan on the other hand is mostly inhabited by the agropastoralist Wakhi people and the last remaining Kyrgyz nomads who live at the eastern end where the Afghan Pamirs - the Big Pamir and the Little Pamir - are located, also known in Persian as the “Bam-e Dunya”, or “the roof of the world”
The Tajiks Pamiri and the Afghan Wakhi people share common linguistic, cultural and reli- gious ties. They are Nizari Isma’ili Muslims, a sect of Shia Islam that follows the Aga Khan as a spiritual leader, and speak both a Persian origin language.
The Kyrgyz nomads are a proud pastoral nomadic group of Turkic language that live in yurts which they move seasonally according to available pasture and weather conditions.
Isolated in a mountainous remote area with few resources and forgotten from their central governments and from any basic infrastructure, the Kyrgyz, Wakhis and Pamiris challenge the elements to survive in one of world’s most desolated area. Their ability to adapt to nature in order to survive prove that human resilience is greater than hardship, and that life at the end of the world is possible.
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