Sibling rivalry

Nurek dam

You know how it is.  You've never heard of a word -- like desuetude, for example -- until you read it somewhere and look it up.  Then you seem to run into it on a daily basis.

I suppose I'd heard of Tajikistan.  Usually as part of a list of the "stans" in Central Asia that had broken off from the Soviet Union.  But, taken alone, I knew nothing about it.  I had no idea who Tajikistan's neighbors were, or how large it was relative to its neighbors (answer: small).  We were never taught in fifth grade its capital, climate, and "principal products."

Then I signed up for a September trek in Tajikistan.  Suddenly, I see references to the little nation everywhere.  Well, not everywhere.  It's not a household word, like "France" or "Japan."  But the name occasionally pops out at me.

As in this week's Economist -- an article entitled Folie de grandeur.  The writer describes Tajikistan as "dirt-poor but water-rich," and its president, Emomali Rakhmon, as an autocrat with a slush fund in the British Virgin Islands.  Rakhmon wants to build a second dam (upstream from the existing Nurek dam) on the Vakhsh river, a tributary of the Amu Darya (Alexander the Great's "Oxus," the river that separates Uzbekistan and Afghanistan).  Rakhmon's fellow autocrat across the western border in Uzbekistan is opposed.  The dam, he fears, will deprive his country of irrigation water.

During the more placid days of Soviet hegemony, Tajikistan sold hydroelectric power (and released needed water) to Uzbekistan in the summer, and Ubekistan sold Tajikistan natural gas in winter.  Now the two neighbors are at each other's throats. 

These things sometimes happen, once siblings grow up and leave the nest.

After our Tajikistan trek, we motor across the border into Uzbekistan.  I can only hope that they haven't closed the border -- or entered into active hostilities -- by that time.  Of course, being caught in the center of a Central Asian war would make for good blogging material. 

But, no.  Mutual irritation between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan seems destined to remain a "cold war."  Especially cold in winter, when each country could use its antagonist's energy products for heat and light.