Across Tajikistan

The 1974 set “Across Tajikistan” was photographed while the Nurek hydroelectric station on the Vakhsh River was still being built, and it opens with that project: “At the construction of the Nurek HPP” and “The man-made sea at Nurek”. Work began in 1961, the reservoir was filled and the first generator started in 1972, and when the station was completed in 1980 its dam, about 300 m high, was the tallest in the world.

Water from the Vakhsh, which joins the Panj to form the Amu Darya, also fed the farms of the Tajik SSR. Cards from the same release show the Vakhsh irrigation system, cotton fields and a poultry farm.

Town views centre on Dushanbe: Putovsky Square, the streets of the republic’s capital and VDNKh Dushanbe, the local Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy. Hissar Fortress, 30 km south-west of the city, was photographed for the same set. The north of the republic is represented by a panorama of Leninabad, one of the oldest cities in Central Asia.

The mountains get as much space: a holiday camp in the Ramit Gorge, a high pasture and yaks grazing in the Eastern Pamirs. These Soviet postcards of Tajikistan put a giant dam, cotton fields and high mountain pasture side by side in one series.

More sights
Views of Crimea · Petrodvorets · Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin · Gatchina Park Ensemble

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Dushanbe

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