1974 TAJIKISTAN - The map of the country

Tajikistan is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia, bordered by Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China. Pakistan lies to the south separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Its territory was previously home to several ancient cultures, including the city of Sarazm of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, and was later home to kingdoms ruled by people of different faiths and cultures, including the Oxus civilization, Andronovo culture, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism.

1934 TAJIKISTAN - A Tajik girl in traditional clothes

Tajik is a general designation for a wide range of Persian-speaking people of Iranian origin, with traditional homelands in the Oxus Basin, the Fergana Valley and on both banks of the upper Oxus, i.e. in present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. In Tajikistan they are the main ethnic group (about 80% of the population, i.e. 6,787,000), but most of them live in Afghanistan (between 9,450,000 and 11,550,000). As a self-designation, the term Tajik, which earlier on had been more or less pejorative, has become acceptable only during the last several decades, particularly as a result of Soviet administration in Central Asia.

1489 TAJIKISTAN (Sughd Region) - Iskanderkul - part of Fann Mountains (UNESCO WHS - Tentative List)

Iskandar or Eskandar is the Persian version of the name Alexander, after Alexander the Great. It is used as a male first name in Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia, where are also toponyms with the same origin. One of this is Iskanderkul, a mountain lake of glacial origin in Tajikistan, which lies at an altitude of 2,195m on the northern slopes of the Gissar Range in the Fann Mountains. Triangular in shape and formed by the congestion of the Saratogh river, it has a surface area of 3.4 square kilometres and is up to 72m deep. A 300 square kilometres tract of land including the lake and surrounding mountains has been designated a nature reserve, and a half of the reserve has been identified as an Important Bird Area.

1450 TAJIKISTAN (Districts of Republican Subordination) - Gissar fortress

Situated at 26 km from Dushanbe, at an altitude of 799-824m, in the center of Gissar valley, the most green and densely-populated part of the country, Gissar fortress is surrounded from all sides by high mountains: from the North - Gissar Range, from the South - the Babatag and Aktau ranges. The fortress has been known for more than 2500 years. As the residence of Gissar bek, the governor-general of the emir of Bukhara, it was an important center of ancient Tajikistan. Time didn't spare the fortress and its structures. In the old days it had walls of 1 meter thick, loopholes for guns and cannons, a pool and a garden inside. The only thing that remained is a monumental gateway with two cylindrical towers, between which there is an ogival arch, built in the 16th century. Besides the castle there are two huge plane trees, which are about 500-700 years old.