The Arbob Cultural Palace is a building in Khujand, Tajikistan, the former headquarters of a Soviet collective farm, built in the 1950s and modelled on the winter gardens of Peterhof, St Petersburg. [1]
The main building consists of three wings - with an ornate theatre seating 800 people in the main wing. The South wing currently houses a museum which tells the history of Arbob and of collectivisation and the USSR in Tajikistan.
Outside the building is a procession of fountains and rose gardens running to the arrival driveway and a bust of Lenin.
The centre was built in the 1950s under the leadership of Urukhojaev, the head of the collective farm. Urukhojaev was a significant Tajik who sat on Soviet committees and was well known in the area around Khujand and in Tajikistan generally.
The building had particular significance in 1992, when it was the site for the meeting of the Tajik Soviet which officially declared independence from the Soviet Union. It was the site where the Tajik flag was chosen.
More recently, in the late 1990s it was also the site where peace conferences following the Tajik civil war were held. In particular, Tajik President Emomalii Rahmon first came to prominence speaking at the Palace, and it was the site for a "plov of peace" which celebrated successful negotiations towards an agreed end to the Tajik civil war.
The Arbob Cultural Palace features on the blue Tajik Somoni 5 dirham bank note (the reverse features the Shrine of Mirzo Tursunzoda).
On 16 November 2007, the Palace became the venue for ceremonies recognising the 15th anniversary of the 16th session of the Shuroi Oli (Supreme Council) of the 12th convocation, which was held in Sughd on 16 November 1002. [2]
Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It has an area of 142,326 km2 (54,952 sq mi) and an estimated population of 9,750,065 people. Dushanbe is the country's capital and largest city. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is separated narrowly from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. Tajiks form the ethnic majority in the country.
The politics of Tajikistan takes place in a framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Legislative power is vested in both the executive branch and the two chambers of parliament.
Dushanbe is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. As of January 2022, Dushanbe had a population of 1,201,800 and that population was largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as Stalinabad, after Joseph Stalin. Dushanbe is located in the Gissar Valley, bounded by the Gissar Range in the north and east and the Babatag, Aktau, Rangontau and Karatau mountains in the south, and has an elevation of 750–930 m. The city is divided into four districts, all named after Persian historical figures: Ismail Samani, Avicenna, Ferdowsi, and Shah Mansur.
The president of Tajikistan is the head of state and de facto head of government of the Republic of Tajikistan. The president heads the executive branch of the country's government and is the commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Tajikistan.
Emomali Sharipovich Rahmonov is a Tajik politician who has been serving as 3rd President of Tajikistan since 16 November 1994. Previously he was the Chairman of the Supreme Assembly of Tajikistan, as the de facto head of state from 20 November 1992 to 16 November 1994. Since 18 March 1998, he has also served as the leader of the left-wing People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan, which dominates the Parliament of Tajikistan. On 30 September 1999, he was elected vice-president of the UN General Assembly for a one-year term.
The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, also commonly known as Soviet Tajikistan, the Tajik SSR, or simply Tajikistan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union which existed from 1929 to 1991 located in Central Asia.
Rahmon Nabiyevich Nabiyev, also spelled Rakhmon Nabiev, was a Tajik politician who served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan from 1982 to 1985 and twice as the 2nd President of Tajikistan from 23 September 1991 to 6 October 1991 and from 2 December 1991 to 7 September 1992. He was also partly responsible for the Tajik Civil War. Rising out of the regional nomenklatura, Nabiyev ascended to power in 1982 as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan. In 1985, he was ousted in a corruption scandal.
The national flag of Tajikistan was adopted in November 1992, replacing the flag of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic of 1953. The flag is a horizontal tricolor of red, white and green, with a yellow crown surmounted by an arc of seven stars at the centre. It has a width ratio of 2:3:2. The tricolor preserves the choice of colors in the former Tajik Soviet flag, as well as the 1:2 proportions.
Khujand, sometimes spelled Khodjent and known as Leninabad from 1936 to 1991, is the second-largest city of Tajikistan and the capital of Tajikistan's northernmost Sughd province.
Tajik Air (legally State Unitary Aviation Enterprise is an airline in Tajikistan. It has its head office at Dushanbe International Airport in Dushanbe. The airline's main hub is at Dushanbe International Airport; in the past, it had also retained a secondary focus city at Khujand's Khudzhand Airport.
The Tajikistani Civil War, also known as the Tajik Civil War, began in May 1992 and ended in 1997. Regional groups from the Garm and Gorno-Badakhshan regions of Tajikistan rose up against the newly formed government of President Rahmon Nabiyev, which was dominated by people from the Khujand and Kulob regions. The rebel groups were led by a combination of liberal democratic reformers and Islamists, who would later organize under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition. The government was supported by Russian military and border guards.
The Gharmi, or Garmi people, are one of the original groups of Tajiks, originate from the Rasht Valley in central Tajikistan.
The United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) was a peacekeeping mission established by the United Nations Security Council in December 1994, and its mandate expired in May 2000. Its purpose was to monitor peace agreements during and after the Tajikistan Civil War. The observers were first deployed in the wake of the ceasefire, in 1994, between the ruling government of Tajikistan, led by Emomali Rahmonov, and the United Tajik Opposition. After the UN-sponsored armistice ended the war in 1997, the UN expanded the mission's original mandate to monitor the peace and demobilization. The mission was headquartered in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Qahhor Mahkamov was a Tajik politician who served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan from 1985 to 1991 and was the first President of Tajikistan from November 1990 until his fall in the August 1991 coup.
Architecture of Central Asia refers to the architectural styles of the numerous societies that have occupied Central Asia throughout history. These styles include a regional tradition of Islamic and Iranian architecture, including Timurid architecture of the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as 20th-century Soviet Modernism. Central Asia is an area that encompasses land from the Xinjiang Province of China in the East to the Caspian Sea in the West. The region is made up of the countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. The influence of Timurid architecture can be recognised in numerous sites in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, whilst the influence of Persian architecture is seen frequently in Uzbekistan and in some examples in Turkmenistan. Examples of Soviet architecture can be found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Istiqlol is a city in Tajikistan, located in Sughd Region. Istiqlol is a city of regional subordination, administratively subordinated to the regional capital of Khujand.
The Historical Museum of Sughd is a regional history museum in Khujand, the second-largest city in Tajikistan and the capital of the country's northernmost province, Sughd. The museum has been built within the Khujand Fortress, reconstructed in 1999 on the southeastern corner of the old city wall. On the northern side of the old city runs the Syr-Darya River, where tourists can stroll or take a gondola.
Khujand State University - was founded in 1932 in Khujand, Tajikistan. First it was known as a High Pedagogical Institute. During the Soviet era, Khujand State University was known as Leninabad State Pedagogical Institute. Leninabad State Pedagogical Institute was renamed to Khujand State University after Tajikistan gained Independence from the USSR. This university is named after Tajik academician Bobojon Gafurov. Alumni include politician Khayrinisso Yusufi.
The Tajik Air and Air Defense Forces is the aerial military service branch of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Tajikistan, which currently consists of 20 helicopters. The force engages in search and rescue missions, as well as military raids.
The 1992 Tajikistan protests, also known as the Tajikistani Revolution, were nonviolent, bloodless protests and demonstrations against the results of the 1991 Tajik presidential election. These results were thought to be rigged and in favour of the president Rahmon Nabiyev. Opposition rallies erupted on 26 March 1992 but demonstrations became large-scale by May, at the onset of violence. These series of peaceful protests would lead to the bloody Tajikistani Civil War.