tajikistan
By plane
National carrier Tajik
Air and the new private airline Somon Air are the country's two
airlines. From Dushanbe, flights are available to numerous
cities across Russia, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara,
Sochi, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Perm, Krasnoyarsk, Orenburg,
Irkutsk, Nizhnevartovsk, Surgut, Kazan, & Yekaterinburg.
Destinations within Central Asia include Bishkek, Almaty,
Urumqi, & Kabul.
Aside from Russia, the main international destinations to/from
Tajikistan are:
§
Istanbul — Turkish
Airlines, Somon Air
§
Dubai/Sharjah — Somon
Air, Tajik Air
§
Frankfurt — Somon Air
§
Tehran — Somon Air,
Iran Aseman Airlines
AirBaltic has several
weekly flights to their Riga hub. Somon Air plans to add
services to China in the future.
The airport in Khujand
has service to about a dozen Russian cities through 8 carriers
plus a weekly China Southern Airlines flight to Urumqi.
While relations with
Uzbekistan are the best among Tajikistan's neighbors, it is the
most crossed by travellers and the roads to these crossings are
in much better condition than those leading to Kyrgyzstan or
Afghanistan. The current situation (June 2010) is unknown, but
in recent years Tajik vehicles have not been allowed into
Uzbekistan and Uzbek vehicles needed to pay large tariffs to
enter Tajikistan. So your trip may require taking one vehicle to
the border and catching a ride on another after crossing the
border. The journey from Tashkent to Khujand takes about two and
a half hours and is frequently travelled by private cars and
marshrutkas (minibuses) which will take you along for a small
amount (under $US10). The short (60km) trip
from Samarkand, Uzbekistan to Penjikent is also frequently
travelled by private cars and marshrutkas. In winter
months, snow blocks the passes connecting Dushanbe with the
north of Tajikistan. To travel to Dushanbe during these months,
you need to head south and cross from Termez, which will take
you around the west & south sides of the mountains and take you
to Dushanbe.
From Kyrgyzstan, there
are a couple of options, mostly from Osh and none
make for a very smooth journey. The rugged, remote Pamir Highway
(see next paragraph) is the slowest, but most popular. From the
crossroads at Sary-Tash, a road leads west for 500km through the
Karategin Valley to Dushanbe. A little rugged near the border,
but not nearly so as the Pamir Highway. A third option is from
the Batken region to Isfara, but it passes through several of
the Uzbek enclaves within Kyrgyzstan, necessitating a
multiple-entry Uzbek visa and plenty of time for border
crossings; bypassing these enclaves is a pain and requires
navigating lots of poor, local roads with little or no signage.
Travelling through the Ferghana Valley, it also has the least
interesting scenery and recent ethnic confrontations in the
region make this a poor choice for travellers.
A scenic, albeit rough,
journey into Tajikistan is via the Pamir Highway which runs from
Osh to Khorog to Dushanbe. Just about the only highway in the
GBAO region, this route ranges from smooth tarmac full of
busses, trucks to a single-lane road carved into a cliff. The
border crossing lies at 4280m and peaks at the Ak-Baital Pass at
4,655m. The journey takes 2-3 days from Osh-Khorog and three on
the rougher stretch from Khorog to Dushanbe, longer if you want
to stop and enjoy the scenery. Minivans travel the route from
Osh to Murghab every few days for $US15; hitch
hiking on Kamaz trucks and ZIL petrol tankers is also possible
anywhere enroute for $US10. A 4 wheel drive is necessary and
large portions of the highway are impassible in winter and
frequently blocked by mudslides in spring.
The US has funded a
couple of bridges connecting Tajikistan with Afghanistan. Roads
from Qurghonteppa, Kulob, & Dushanbe lead to the main crossing
at Nizhnii Panj. From there, a road leads south to Kunduz which
unfortunately, as of 2010, is a stronghold of the Taliban in the
north of Afghanistan. There is a bridge at Khorog leading to
Feizabad, Afghanistan as well as a few mountainous roads
elsewhere in the GBAO leading to Afghanistan.
A border crossing with
China was opened in 2004. The crossing and connecting roads link
the Pamir Highway with the the Karakorum Highway and provides a
link to Kashgar (Kashi) to the north and Pakistan to the south.
As of 2010, it remains closed to foreigners.
There is currently a
ferry operating across the Pyanj river between Afghanistan and
Tajikistan that costs roughly $US10 one way. However, the
opening of the U.S. funding bridge over the Pyanj will likely
end this service, which crosses roughly three times per day and
does not run on Sundays.
The train to Moscow is
popular with migrant workers. It takes around five days and
crosses through Uzbekistan (twice), Turkmenistan, & Kazakhstan;
transit visas are required for all these countries.
Train 367 - 08:08 leaves Dushanbe
(Mondays & Wednesdays). 14:04 Arrives Khujand next day. Final
destination Kanibadam.
Train 335 -
Khujand-Samarqand-Saratov is three times a week. 18:44 depart
Khujand (Mon, Thur, Sat) 02:15 arrives Samarqand.
