Yagnob Valley - Nature, history, and chances of a mountain community development in Tadjikistan / Долина р. Ягноб - природа, история и возможности развития горной общины в Таджикистане

Institute of Geography Russian Academy of Sciences

International Program “Leadership for Environment And Development”



A. GUNYA
YAGNOB VALLEY
- NATURE, HISTORY, AND CHANCES OF A MOUNTAIN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN TADJIKISTAN
Edited by Corresponding Member of Russian Academy of Sciences N.F. Glazovsky

This edition was sponsored by International Program “Leadership for Environment And Development”




KMK Scientifik Press Moscow 2002

УДК 330.15(575.3)



A. Gunya. Yagnob Valley - Nature, history, and chances of a mountain community development in Tadjikistan. - Moscow. KMK Scientisic Press. 2002. 80 p.

   The Yagnob Valley represents in its upper part an example of isolated peripheral area very typical for highlands of Asia and especially for Tadjikistan, where each mountain valley has its own unique ethnic and cultural style of life and land use structure highly adapted to natural conditions. The natural isolation of the Yagnob Valley was conductive to the preservation in its upper part of an unique ethnic group - the Yagnobis whose language is very similar to the Ancient Sogdian language attributed to the East-Iranian language group. A strict dependence of land use type on natural conditions and natural processes as well as the peripheral positions and low accessibility limited the development and application of new economic methods. The study is undertaken with respect to model of the existential space of Yagnobi community affecting land use, risks and possibilities for survival. Within the limits of the existing structure of the natural resources use there are four very important types of risks that threaten to destroy existing relationship between the natural environment and the local economy: agroclimatic risk, risk of slope processes, anthropogenic degradation, the social and political risk.
Figures 32. Tables 7. Photos 15.



Гуин A.H. Доли^а p. Ягаоб - природа, история и возможности развития горной общины в Таджикистане. - Москва. Товарищество ^ауч^ых изданий КМК. 2002. 80с.

   Доёина р. Ягноб в своей верхней части представёяет собой пример изоёированного периферийного района, типичного дёя высокогорных районов Азии и в особенности Таджикистана, где почти каждая высокогорная доёина имеет свой неповторимый этно-куёьтурный уклад и формы ресурсопоёьзования с высокой степенью адаптации к природным усёовиям. Объективная природная изолированность Ягнобской долины способствовала сохранению в ее верховьях уникального народа - ягнобцев, язык которых близок к древнесогдийскому языку, относящемуся к восточно-иранского языковой группе. Жесткая зависимость характера природопользования от природных условий и процессов, а также удаленность и низкая доступность ограничили развитие и применение новых методов хозяйствования. В работе делается акцент на исследование пространства существования (экзистенциального пространства) ягнобцев, модель которого описывает характер использования земель, сопровождаемые при этом риски и возможные пути к их преодолению. В пределах ныне0него характера природопользования имеются четыре наиболее важных типа риска, угрожающих разру0ению сложив0ихся природно-хозяйственных связей: агроклиматический риск, риск склоновых процессов, антропогенная деградация ланд0афтов, социально-политический риск. 32 рисунка, 7 таблиц и 15 фотографий.

Translated from Russian into English by V. Klassen





ISBN 5-87317-107-6

                                 © А. Гу^я, текст, 2002.
© ООО “КМК”, издание, 2002.



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                1. Introduction





1.1. General features


The valley of the Yagnob River is an important object of investigation of the nature - man interaction and study of the «delicate» structure of their interrelations and links. High mountains as well as deserted areas impregnated by ancient oases and polar Arctic areas represent the examples of geographical types of territories with the extreme forms of use of natural resources by their degree of adaptation to natural conditions. The valley of the Yagnob River situated in the middle part of the Central Asia, at the border of mountains and deserted plains (Fig. 1), felt for all time the influence of great historical events, wars and invasions, on the one hand, and has managed, due to its objective isolated status and poor availability, to keep original features of traditional methods of the use of natural resources, style of life, culture with the Yagnobi language close to the ancient Sogdian language as one of its elements, on the other hand. The Yagnob Valley enclosed in all parts by high spurs of Hissar and Zeravshan Ranges represents in its upper part an example of an isolated peripheral area - refugium of the ethnos and its environment, of ancient cultural landscapes.
This presents a good example for studying the influence of natural factors on the features of use of natural resources. There it is getting quite clear that the application of the concept of sustainable development, extremely popular lately, can be very relative.
In the conditions of isolation and peripheral position, strictly limited possibilities of use of resources the absence of any development is also possible. It is substituted by a sustainable equilibrium of natural and social-economic components of geosystems and a self-regulation of the population number, number of live-stock, arable lands, etc.
The analysis of the Yagnob Valley presents a special interest first of all:


Fig. 1. Location map

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•      As a curious phenomenon for the ethnographers, linguists, geographers;
•      The Yagnob Valley that represents a whole integrity together with the unique Yag-nobi ethnos gives unique possibilities to build up methodological concepts and to develop models of nature - man interrelations, to define stable and mutable natural and social structural interrelationships of the existential space important in history, its internal and external boundaries, structuredness, capacity, etc.;
•      At last, the valley of the Yagnob River reflects clearly a totality of problems of sustainable development typical for mountain areas. The traditional ecological experience of Yagnobis is important to elaborate the concept of development of mountain areas. The significance of a relict experience of use of natural resources for the actual situation consists in the fact that all its components are naturally conditioned (Danilova, 2000) including the social organization. The natural basis was apparently a factor of maintenance that contributed to the survival of the ethnos.
Proceeding from the priority of these directions of research, the book consists of three main parts (with the exception of introduction and conclusion). The first part presents the description of nature, population and economy of the Yagnob Valley, the manner of description of an individual area being traditional for geography. The second part presents the Yagnobi materials basing on the concept of the space of existence (existential space) that makes it possible in full measure, to our mind, to illustrate the basic peculiarities of development of the Yagnob Valley and to find explanations of many problems, for instance, what are the resource and material fundamentals of development of the Yagnobi ethnos, risks of development, etc. The latter concept of the existential space emerged just in the middle of the field expedition research carried out with the participation of researchers and post-graduate stu


dents of the Institute of Geography Russian Academy of Sciences, students of the Department of Geography of the Moscow State University, students-geographers from Germany and Holland. A great number of discussions «around a fire» bore ideas that combined the academic knowledge and a unique live reality represented by the Yagnob Valley. Later these ideas were conceptually designed in a number of publications (Badenk-ov, Gunja, Lindner, 1994; Gunja, 1996; Gu-nya, 2000), but they are not completely devised yet. At a present stage of study the existential space represents an aggregate living space of a socially identified group (in the case in question, an ethnic group - Yag-nobis) made up of different subspaces - spiritual and cultural, social, subspace of material resources. Due to natural isolation of the valley of the Yagnob River the subspace of material resources and, partly, other subspaces have precise boundaries following the outline of high-mountain ranges and rivers (see the section concerned with the existential space below). In accordance with the suggested concept a functional zonation and proposals concerning the development of the valley, preservation of its cultural landscapes as a living environment of Yagnobis have been elaborated (last part).

1.2. Geographical position

The Yagnob River appertains to the basin of the Zeravshan River. For the distance of about 120 km the Yagnob runs from the East to the West, then it turns sharply to the North, its confluence with the Iskander-Darya River forms the Fan-Darya River flowing into the Zeravshan River. The study area comprises the upper part of the valley (a little more than 2/3 of its total length), situated between the southern slope of the Zeravshan Range and the northern slope of the Hissar Range. The maximum absolute altitude comes to 5145 m in the Zeravshan Range in the upper reaches of the Yagnob. The river-bed of the Yagnob


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is situated at the altitudes of 2200-2800 m, the bottom of the valley being practically not discernible. The relative altitudes of watersheds above the bottom of the valley make up from 1500 to 2000 m (in places up to 2500 m).
The uniqueness of the Yag-nob Valley is determined in many respects by its objective natural isolation (Fig. 2, 3, Table 1). The relations with the outer world are considerably impoverished. The nearest locality supplied by electricity and having a dirt road accessible to vehicles is the kishlak Marghib. Up the valley next to this kishlak there is a narrow canyon-looking gorge that practically divide the «Sogdian» (hereinafter the term is con
ditional) Yagnob and the outer world. The map (Fig. 3) shows that the main roads linking the Yagnob to the outer world are mountain paths open only during the summer period. In the winter period paths are covered with snow; furthermore, they are situated in a zone of permanent snow avalanches activity. Yagnobis stay completely isolated from the whole world during about eight months a year. Several times the valley’s inhabitants advanced to the authorities official requests concerning the road construction to the valley, but these attempts resulted in nothing. In 1960-es geologists have made a road to the Yagnob from the South,

Fig. 2. Settlement of Yagnob Valley.

Fig. 3. Accessibility to the Yagnob Valley.

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Table. 1. Villages of the Yagnob Valley, location and number of farmholdings
(Sources: Aminov 1873; Sobolev 1874; Virsky 1890, 1906;
Andreev 1970; Bushkov 1988; topographic maps and data collected by the author).

from the Romit gorge (accessible only to cross-country vehicles). It has been exploited during a certain time, but afterwards slope processes resulted in its destruction. There are some frag

ments of that road left on north-oriented slopes. Nevertheless, the road construction is in progress now proportionally to the sponsors’ money influx and the activity of the inhabitants them
number                                slope   number of t   he farm-holdings    
on the                                [°], in                                  
map                 altitude, exposit the     187 188  190  192 194   196  199 
(Fig. 2) name       m         ion     average  0   7    4    7    1    9    5  
1        Khshirtob  2320      S         15    200 35    48  40  80    170   5  
2        Farkau     2400      S         10     0   5    4    3    0   0     0  
3        Varsaut    2380      N         20    30  12    8    7  20    20    0  
4        Mushtif    2400      NE        15     0   0    9    4    0   12    0  
5        Makhtamain 2480      NE        15    20   8    ?    5  13    9     1  
6        Vaginzoy   2580      NE        15    30   8    ?    4  14    16    1  
7        Bedef      2580      SW        25    15   7    10   7  12    20    2  
8        Shakhsara  2500      N         10    50  10    11   2    6   10    0  
9        Shovita    2520      N         10    25  13    13   6  18    28    2  
10       Dumzoy     2480      N         20    40  10    10   6  10    12    0  
11       Sokidara   2500      N         20    25  12    14   6  17    20    0  
12       Chukat     2520      NE        15    28   6    6    5    8   12    0  
13       Naumetkan  2500      N         15    30  13    14  10  27    7     4  
14       Pulraut    2750      S         25    11   7    8   12  16    15    2  
15       Kashi      2600        SSW     25    11   8    8    8  16    20    3  
16       Tagichinor 2600      SW        25    27  12    13  13  17    14    6  
17       Petif      2620      S         20    30  17    17  12  29    40    2  
18       Garmen     2700      SW        20     0   0    0   15  22    48    6  
19       Simich     2620      SE        25     0   0    0   10    8   3     0  
20       Sokan      2700      E         20     0  27    4    ?  19    13    0  
21       Kul        2760      S         15     ?  22    26  25  40    ?     9  
22       Dagana     2620      SE        10     0   0    0    6    9   5     0  
23       Pskan      2560      NE        15    35  36    38  30  29    40    7  
24       Naumetkan  2530      NE        15    20   0    0    0    6   ?     0  
25       Dekhbalian 2600      N         20    50  14    15  25  37    32    4  
26       Tagob      2640      S         20     0  13    13  15  30    ?     0  
27       Kiansi     2600      S         20    22  13    26  40  60     100  4  
28       Kirionte   2620      SSE       20    18  37    40  40  82    90    12 
29       Dekhikalon 2680      S         15    40  22    25  20  47    ?     0  
30       Novobad    2700      S         20     4   5    7    8  48    ?     0  

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selves. In 1997 it was already in several kilometers to the East of the Yagnobi core. It should be mentioned that the importance of the road is belittled by its negative ecological effects on the landscapes of the Yagnob. The last section of the road from the village Khshirtob up to Bedef is characterized by a relatively steep-sloped relief. In view of a lack of resources needed to maintain the road in an appropriate condition, slope processes began to destroy this section of the road; the ecological state of neighboring landscapes is being aggravated too.
Administratively the study area pertains to Aini district of Sogdian Region (former Leninabad Region).

1.3. Research history

First precise data about the Yagnob Valley date from the 19th century and especially from its latter half; in this period first military-topographical investigations were organized in course of the process of adhesion of the mountain areas of Central Asia to Russia. The research carried out by Meiendorf in 1820 (Meiendorf, 1975), by the naturalist Leman and mining engineer Bogoslovsky, participants in the Bukhara expedition organized in 1841 and headed by the mining engineer Butelev (Brezhitsky, 1911) are mentioned in publications. Later statistical data about Yagnobis and their economy have been collected in military-topographical and scientific expeditions: G.A. Aminov (1873 -expedition of the general Abramov in 1870), M.M. Virsky (1890; 1906), L.N. Sobolev (1874), A.L. Kun (1881), N.G. Mallitsky (1924), H.F.L. Junker (1930), and others. In that period first topographical maps of the Yagnob Valley were also created. In 1883 a well-known German journal «Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen» published a paper of G. Capus «The Yagnob Valley and its Inhabitants» (Capus, 1883), the author

emphasizing the originality of the Yagnob Valley, the uniqueness of the language of its inhabitants and essential necessity of its detailed investigation.
In the period after the 1917 revolution a huge contribution to learning the life of Yagnobis has been made by M.S. Andreev (his journals were published in their entirety only in 1970), A.N. Kandaurov (1940), M.N. Bogoliubov (1956), A.L. Khromov (1969) and others. During the World War II and in the post-war period a gap between ethnographic and pure physico-geographical study amplified. Topographical maps of a scale 1/ 100,000 and first maps of natural resources, first of all geological maps were created.
During the last 10 to 15 years Yagnob has been an object of a special attention on the part of the public. Some publications with a character of sensation appeared in the media relative to the so-called «puzzle of Yag-nob». It is of no small importance that such an attention has political underlying causes related to a certain extent to the desire of throwing light on the negative aspects of the epoch of the «commanding economy» at what time, under the pretext of moving out of a dangerous geodynamic zone, the Yag-nobi people in 1970 was within a little completely evicted to the vicinity of Dushanbe and to cotton-growing districts of Golod-naya Steppe (the Starving Steppe). The detailed bibliography of Yagnob (115 references) contains mainly ethnographo-linguistic descriptions and notes (compiler O. Panfilov). In 1993 Yagnob became an object of research organized by the laboratory of mountain geosystems of the Institute of Geography Russian Academy of Sciences with the author’s direct participation. In 19941996 a multidisciplinary research was organized in Yagnob with the author’s leadership, a large-scale landscape map and later maps of land-use, population framework, etc. have been created.

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                2. Nature, population and economy of the Yagnob Valley





Fig. 4. Various centers of Yagnobi population and traditional links to the outside

2.1. Ethnic groups of Tadjikistan and special features of Yagnob people: The Sodges

The presence of refugiums of the ethnos and its environment is not exceptional for high-mountain areas of Asia and especially for Tadjikistan, almost each valley in high mountains having there its unique ethno-cultural structure and forms of use of natural resources highly adapted to natural conditions (Oshanin, 1959; Kislia-kov, 1959; Gafurov, 1989; and others). Yagnob is however a very specific example, as far as about three thousand people inhabiting a very restricted area, native speakers of the ancient Sogdian language and bearers of the ancient culture have managed to avoid assimilation

during many centuries right up to 1970 (in 1970 the Yag-nobis were forcibly evicted from the valley - Fig. 4).
Yagnob occupies its special position among historic-cultural provinces of Tadjikistan (Fig. 5) being situated close to the regions considerably more important by their surface and population number, such as Hissar, Karategin. In different historical periods Yagnobi mountain pastures were in the center of conflicts between powerful neighbors. Separated from ethnic groups of Western Pamirs speaking cognitive languages Yagnob represented an enclave surrounded by Tadjik cultural-ethnic groups, it underwent a certain influence and apparently the core of the Yag-nobi ethnos truncated constantly. The actual pattern of population framework is an example of this fact, Yagno-bis-Sogdians being contracted from downstream and upstream by settlements inhabited by Tadjik-speaking population (Fig. 2).
The history of the people inhabiting Yagnob has common roots with well-known and formerly powerful Sog-diana - ancient state of Central Asia (7th-6th centuries BC to the 7th century AD), first of all because of closeness of the ancient Sogdian and Yagnobi languages (Bar
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Fig. 5. Main cultural and historical regions of Tadjikistan

told, 1926). The natural isolation of the Yagnob Valley was conductive to give possibility to ancient Sogdians to stay (or to take cover?) there. They appertain to the Eastern-Iranian language branch; in the course of historical processes they were assimilated step by step by peoples appertaining to the Western-Iranian language group (Tadjiks of our days belong to that group too), and after that by the Turkicspeaking peoples (Poliakov, 1983). Arabian invaders propagating the Islam have basically wiped out literary texts and cultural monuments of Zoroastrian Sogdi-ans (Gafurov, 1989).

2.2. History of the opening up

Actual forms of use of natural resources, patterns of the population framework and cultural landscapes reflect the features of at least five

periods of development of Yagnob: ancient (pre-Rus-sian), Russian (integration to imperial Russia), Soviet (before the eviction in 1970), period of eviction of 1970-es - 1990-es (the valley was just about not populated), modern (since the end of 1980-es, the homecoming of Yagnobis taking in that time legal character). It is a paradox, but the early periods are more thoroughly described in publications, in contrast the characteristics of later periods in publications are one-sided (detailed linguistic studies, researching vegetation as such, geological structure, etc.). The first two periods are crucial for the formation of the most principal and general peculiarities of the space of existence of Yagnobis - population framework, traditional landuse, etc., whereas the subsequent periods explain many features of actual development trends of the Yag
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nob Valley (they will be considered in detail jointly with characteristics of the population framework and the economy).

2.2.1. Formation of population and economic assimilation of Yagnob and upper Zeravshan (ancient period)

The earliest mention of Sogdiana dates from the end of the 6th to the beginning of the 5th century BC. Sogdiana, equally with Baktria and Horesm, was the most ancient state formation in the territory of Central Asia. The slave-holding society arose very early there, it was formed of castes of priests, warriors, tillers, slaves. At the same time patriarchal-patrimonial relations were of a great importance, they have been kept just until our days as one of the major social institutes - avlod (by Bushkov, 1991). The village community played also an important part from time immemorial, it came to us in a form of Yagno-bi «sada», for example. The Zoroastrism was widely practiced by the side of primitive cults. In the 4th century BC Sogdiana was invaded by the army of Alexander the Great. The legends about the expedition of Alexander the Great to the upper reaches of Zeravshan are mentioned in published works. Up to the Arabian conquest of the 8th century AD Sogd formed part of different empires: Greek-Bak-trian (3rd century BC), Kushan (1st century BC), etc. First specimens of the Sogdian script date from the end of the 1st century BC to the 2ⁿd century AD. The Arabian conquest resulted in its obliteration.
The use of historical, ethnographic and archeological materials gives a pattern of settling and assimilation of Yagnob as a part of the historical process of formation of the population of the Upper Zeravshan (Khro-mov, 1972; Bushkov, 1988; and others).
The final Bronze Age is considered as a period of arrival of new Indo-Iranian tribes to Central Asia and spreading of Indo-Iranian languages in this connection. In final 1st millenary BC to first centuries AD the popula

tion of Sogd, Tashkent oasis and Western Fergana as a whole consisted of a settled agricultural group and stock-raising group. The stock-raising group is represented by burial monuments of burial-mounds (plains tribes) and kurums (mountain tribes). The single historical-cultural complex of burial-mounds and kurums was developed at first on the basis of closely related tribal groups, but later the representatives of each group chose in the course of their development different modes of economic activities. For the representatives of the kurums culture it was a way of seasonal vertical migrations developed in the process of opening up of the altitudinal belts of the mountains.
The upper reaches of the Zeravshan, as a result of a set of reasons, were found to be on the road of migration of large masses of stock-raising population from the North to the South, some part of that people has settled the basins of large rivers of the upper Zeravshan. This process amplified in 4th -5th centuries AD, cattle-breeding groups settled agricultural lands mingling in the local population and the patrimonial stock-raising aristocracy has emerged.
The documents discovered on the Mug Mountain (Livshitz, 1962), reports of Arab geographers and archeological works show that in the 7th century there was already a framework of settlements that has been kept in its main features until now.
In the upper reaches and partly in the middle part of the Zeravshan the memory of the people Galcha was left. The ruins of the castle settled, by the legend, by two brothers-kings Kashel and Mashel Galcha that owned the valleys of the mountain Zeravshan and Yagnob are known there.
The first Arabian campaigns to Central Asia began in the 7th century, and many monuments of the Zoroastrism were destroyed in the end of the first quarter of the 8th century. The population framework also underwent changes, many villages were destroyed. Periods of great conquests resulted in the ac

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