We spent Sunday night in Penjikent, a city of about 35,000, making it the tenth largest city in Tajikistan by population, a small town by American standards. In the morning, we headed out to see the nearby ruins of ancient Penjikent, a Sogdian city-state abandoned in 722 AD when the Arabs invaded. On the way … Continue reading →

Sunday morning we left Samarkand and drove to the Jartepa border crossing between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. I didn’t know what to expect. When the Soviet Union invaded and took over Central Asia in the 1920s, it ostensibly drew the boundaries of the then Soviet Republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan based on ethnicity. The result … Continue reading →