A TASTE OF YAK IN REMOTE MURGHAB

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 DUSHANBE 001466

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SCA/CEN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON ETRD PGOV EAID PREL TI
SUBJECT: A TASTE OF YAK IN REMOTE MURGHAB

REF: REF A: DUSHANBE 1456; REF B: DUSHANBE 1460

DUSHANBE 00001466 001.2 OF 002



1. (U) Summary: Remote, harsh and cold, and sparsely populated
by residents with hardened wind-battered facial features,
Murghab sits atop an 11,778-foot plateau in an area that defines
remote in eastern Tajikistan. EconOffs drove to Murghab in
eastern Tajikistan in early October to see how residents live.
They found a town offering little overall economic activity and
surviving on a combination of yaks, remittances, and assistance
programs, but benefiting very little from the flow of Chinese
traders. End Summary.


2. (U) Murghab sits at an international crossroads with China 90
kilometers to the east, Kyrgyzstan 420 kilometers to the north,
and Khorog 311 kilometers west. The 7,000 people in Murghab
survive on yak and sheep herding, trading, handicrafts, and
remittance income from abroad. Murghab physically resembles
rural Mongolia; residents of Murghab are mostly ethnic Kyrgyz,
typically former nomads who've settled there. Russian is the
common language in Murghab, and both the Tajik and Kyrgyz
primary schools teach Russian language to local youth. There
are separate mosques for the Kyrgyz Sunni Muslims and for the
Shia Pamiri Ismailis, who go to the Jamoat Khona (an Ismaili
mosque).


3. (U) The town of Murghab is a thicket of winding streets, with
small houses cobbled together from bits and pieces of wood,
scrap metal, stone, mud, bricks, and discarded car parts.
Residents heat their houses with coal, and use underground wells
for drinking water. There are no cafes or restaurants, and by
6:00 PM the streets are empty. Since almost nothing grows in
Murghab, nearly all food is imported, mostly from Kyrgyzstan.
EconOffs enjoyed yak-stuffed peppers and yak soup, along with
fried eggs, bread, and tea. The night sky in Murghab, unspoiled
by electric lights, reveals billions and billions of stars with
a creamy Milky Way overhead; a nearby Soviet astronomy facility
was planned but not completed.


4. (U) Peeking into the stalls in Murghab's bazaar reveals small
quantities of Chinese imported clothing, and small consumer and
electronics goods. Transportation costs drive up local prices,
with the price for a 50 kilogram sack of flour 180 somoni, 50
somoni more than in Dushanbe; recent inflation has hit local
residents hard (reftel A). Local businesspeople told EconOffs
October 4 that Tajik traders bring in goods from China through
the Kulma Pass or through Osh in Kyrgyzstan. Fifteen Chinese
trucks sat at a small truck terminal on the edge of town,
deciding whether to wait more than a week for the Tajik-Chinese
border to re-open on October 16, or to travel further to Osh
where the can cross any time, weather permitting. [Note: The
border crossing at the Kulma Pass is open 15 days, closed 15
days. End note.] The Chinese traders keep to themselves and do
not use Tajik services.


5. (SBU) The roads to Murghab are in poor condition, and China
is considering rehabilitating the road from the Kulma Pass to
Khorog through Murghab. Flying to Murghab is not an option
(there is no commercial air service),although there is an old,
well-constructed Soviet airport a few kilometers north of
Murghab on the way to Osh, Kyrgyzstan. The biggest surprise
about the airport in Murghab besides its existence is the
quality and length of the three-kilometer asphalt runway. The
terminal has been stripped completely bare, and there is no
fence preventing vehicles from driving right onto the runway.
According to Suhrob Garibmamadov of the Aga Khan's Mountain
Societies Development Support Program, Russian military support
planes use the airport every seven to ten days.


6. (U) A variety of donors, particularly the Mountain Societies
Development Support Program and the international
non-governmental development Agency for Technical Cooperation
and Development fund education and health projects, ecotourism,
poverty reduction, and small business development programs. The
Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development helps 104 women

DUSHANBE 00001466 002.2 OF 002


sell their handicrafts in Dushanbe through a project called the
Yak House. A small ecotourism project puts up adventure
tourists in a local guest house or arranges yurt stays. USAID
helped rehabilitate the town's mini-hydro plant (reftel B) in

2002. The area's single Democracy Commission grantee planned to
publish a bulletin but had to cancel her grant due to local
government pressure. A public association "SUDVO" works on
basic poverty reduction; combining membership and donor funds,
SUDVO gives yaks, goats, and sheep to extremely poor people for
basic survival. Five residents of Murghab made the final round
of competition for the Future Leaders Exchange Program this
year.


7. (U) Comment: Residents of Murghab are extremely welcoming to
foreigners, and blame the government for their predicament.
Opportunities are few, and there has been little attempt to
harness the economic benefits from transit traders, although the
anticipated Chinese influx into the region has only begun to
gain momentum. It is likely that economic development will
largely pass by Murghab, along with most of Gorno-Badakshan's
200,000 residents. End Comment.
JACOBSON