Impoverished Tajikistan faces even tougher times

Calum MacLeod | USA TODAY

ISTIKLOL, Tajikistan — Hundreds of men on horseback wearing Soviet tank helmets fought in the traditional sport of buzkashi at last month's festival of Navruz for a chance to win a cow, carpet, camel or a car.

Those are major prizes in this Central Asian republic once part of the Soviet Union and one of the world's poorest countries. The celebration to welcome the Persian new year offered only temporary relief from a looming economic crisis that exposes the vulnerability of this nation of 8 million people.

As Navruz heralds springtime, Nurik Babaev, 27, seeks another construction job in distant Russia, where up to 1 million Tajik workers — roughly half of all working-age males — provide cheap, seasonal labor.

Russia's recession and the crash of its currency have shrunk the value of salaries, while work permits have become tougher to get, he said, enjoying the buzkashi in Istiklol, 40 miles from the Afghan border.

"I want to stay in Tajikistan, but there are no jobs here," said Babaev, who has spent several months each year laboring in Moscow for the past decade. "I get so tired working there."

The money Tajik migrants send home amounts to half of the economy and makes Tajikistan the world's most remittance-dependent country, according to the World Bank.

Russia's economic woes, combined with weak export prices for aluminum and cotton, will slow Tajik GDP growth to 4% this year, from 6.7% in 2014, the Asian Development Bank forecast in March.

Worries about money and family separation are commonplace. In the capital, Dushanbe, student Ahliddin Rahmonov, 18, misses his father, who works in Moscow so Rahmonov and his three brothers can stay in school.

"At Navruz, it's important to be together. But the ruble fall has made life tougher, and the ticket home is too expensive," Rahmonov said.

He studies hydroelectric engineering and hopes for a career at home, because hydropower ranks among the few potential exports of mountainous, landlocked Tajikistan. President Emomali Rahmon, 62, promises the country will gain prosperity as an energy hub, since just 7% of the land is suitable for growing crops.

Portraits of the authoritarian ruler, who's led the nation for 23 years, stand everywhere. "We like him. He cares so much about the people," Rahmonov said as he watched Navruz dances in a public park.

Other residents question the president's policies. "It's bread and circuses, like the old (Roman) emperors," Abdumalik Kadirov, a media expert, said about the state-funded celebrations.

Last month, the president's office pledged to construct the region's biggest theater, a project that follows building the world's tallest flagpole and largest teahouse.

"The government should take steps to compensate the (economic) losers. Instead the state announces a plan to build a theater," Kadirov said, adding that graft, which is rampant in Tajikistan, could plague the new project.

In Takob village, north of the capital and beside the mountain snow line, farmer Baraka Niyozov, 48, hoped for peace and smoother roads in 2015. He last worked in Moscow two years ago, earning $2,000 in six months, but he warned fellow Tajiks that "many people get cheated there and not paid."

These days, the whole country feels cheated, said Tajik artist Safarov Rakhim, 63, who grew up in a Soviet orphanage. "Other nations take advantage of Tajikistan. We are a weak nation," Rakhim said.

His latest painting has references to the unequal revenue deal for a Russian hydroelectric project being built in Tajikistan. The artist's wife cares for their son's children in Moscow, and their daughter raises a family in Turkey.

"My dream is that my children and grandchildren live in their motherland, and it is a prosperous country. I wish that they were proud of their country," Rakhim said from his Dushanbe studio. "It will happen but will take a long time."