Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, is changing rapidly. In what was once a Soviet city known for its quiet tree-lined avenues, new highrise towers and grand administrative buildings are emerging. It is an extraordinary transformation taking place as Tajikistan reimagines what it means to be an independent Central Asian republic with its own national identity. But some residents are questioning the price at which it comes: the demolition of the city’s Soviet architecture and with it, the loss of childhood homes and memories to large-scale construction.
It is a topic debated on the pages of local newspapers, on social media and in local teahouses – pitting a shrinking but vocal class of Russian-speaking, middle-class natives of Soviet Dushanbe who oppose these changes as a targeted erasure of its history against the city’s Tajik-speaking majority, many of whom moved here from the countryside and view the changes in the capital as a sign of a nation coming into its own.