Afghanistan. Part II. CitiesMapApril 17–19, 21, 2013 My flight to Kabul from Istanbul departs in the middle of the night. I drift off to the roar of the engines. Several hours later, the plane lands. It’s still dark out, I’m wide asleep. I look out the window and see a fairly large airport. Big and pretty. Wow, Afghanistan has really come a long way. And there are so many planes on the tarmac. I had expected the Kabul airport to be more modest. ![]()
As it turned out, a switched-on cellphone had been discovered on the plane. None of the passengers admitted to owning it, so the pilot decided to turn back around after three hours of flying. All the passengers had to go back into the airport, everybody was searched, all the luggage And flew to Kabul, for sure this time. ![]() KabulMap
I expected to encounter smoldering ruins. Instead, I encountered a fairly charming, flourishing Oriental city. ![]() Everything is calm and peaceful here. ![]() A bit dusty. ![]() But generally bustling with life. ![]() The Soviet people built a few residential complexes here at one point. ![]() Today, these buildings are considered a great place to live. The laundry drying everywhere makes them feel quite homey. ![]() One of Afghanistan’s characteristics is illiteracy. Consequently, the Russian word “microrayon” (residential complex) has turned into “macroreyan” here. Every block has an information billboard, sponsored by the local wireless company, which lists the block’s number, total apartments, and so on. ![]() A hand-powered Ferris wheel. ![]() There are kiosks for topping up your cell phone balance at every turn. ![]() A fire hydrant. ![]() Traffic lights. ![]() Trash dumpsters. ![]() In general, the city is surprisingly clean. It’s being tidied and swept all day long. ![]() There are workers in orange jumpsuits everywhere. ![]() A pleasant street. ![]() A busy corner. ![]() An apartment building-turned-market. ![]() A rug with a Kalashnikov. ![]() Flatbread, fresh-baked flatbread! ![]() I would advise against using the peculiarly shaped, khaki-colored mailboxes. It seems very likely that no one actually collects mail from them. ![]() A payphone. ![]() Graffiti. ![]() Bus drivers stop when they see this sign. ![]() There were trolleys in Kabul once. After the Taliban came to power, the trolleys fell into disuse, were piled in a depot and left there for ten years. Last year, everything was sold to Pakistan for scrap. The wires have long been cut down. This is all that remains of a once-extensive trolley system: ![]() There’s a large hill in the middle of the city, popularly known as TV Mountain. Its summit is covered with antennas of all kinds. ![]() The slopes are inhabited by the poor. ![]() There are trash dumpsters here, too, but the general level of filth is significantly higher. ![]() The view from the top, with a road disappearing into the haze. ![]() Beneath the haze is Tajbeg Palace, where one of the country’s former leaders, Hafizullah Amin, was assassinated in 1979. ![]() The Soviet government had decided to assassinate Amin because it suspected him of getting too friendly with the Americans. One evening, he and his guests were poisoned, but unwitting—and also Soviet—doctors managed to save their comrade’s life. He was killed later that night in a covert operation carried out by Russian special forces tank units. ![]() * * * The road heading northwest from the capital passes through the mountains. There are many rivers here, so water pressure in hoses is free. For promotional purposes, the hoses lack shut-off valves. ![]() The famous Salang Tunnel is located here. ![]() It’s so muddy and dusty inside that you can’t see a thing. ![]() And the road quality is so terrible that trucks risk flipping over if they don’t drive carefully. ![]() The system works like this: truck traffic is restricted to one direction at a time, alternating every 24 hours. At night, the tunnel is closed. There are lines of trucks kilometers long parked along the pass, waiting for their turn the next day. ![]() The most widely used motif in truck decorations is a heart pierced with a dagger, from which blood drips down into a vessel or chalice. ![]() And the daggers are sharpened well here. ![]() Mazar-e SharifMapThe dismal entrance gates more or less correspond to the general dismalness of the city. ![]() All the lampposts are wrapped with multicolored rope lights that are lit up at night (like in Azerbaijan). ![]() There are irrigation ditches between the sidewalk and the roadway (like in Juba, Almaty, Teheran, or Dushanbe). ![]() A modern military base. ![]() A handshake. ![]() Green. ![]() Red. The pedestrians on red lights in Mazar-e Sharif all have their arms hanging down to their knees. ![]() A payphone. ![]() The city is known for its rugs. Even though Afghan rugs are generally fairly uninteresting. Persian ones are a hundred times better. ![]() The city is also known for being the site of the tomb of Imam Ali. A thousand years ago, some guy from Mazar-e Sharif had a dream that Ali was buried here, so he built a mosque on the spot. The real tomb of Imam Ali is actually in Najaf, Iraq. ![]() Nevertheless, the mosque is highly venerated and receives large numbers of pilgrims. ![]() Thousands of white doves hang out next to the mosque. They say that if you bring a gray pigeon here, in a few days it will become white. ![]() Let’s take a walk through the city. ![]() A miller. ![]() A boy being coy. ![]() Butchers. ![]() White burqas can occasionally be seen here. ![]() Street art. ![]() BalkhMapSome esteemed guy’s shrine is located here. ![]() There’s no plumbing, people use pumps to get water. ![]() A fence being constructed. ![]() Simple Afghan life. ![]() |
april
|
april
|
april 2013
Afghanistan. Part II. Cities
← Ctrl →
|
april
|
april
|
© 19952025 Artemy Lebedev |