#pamiri

Ethnic Diversity in the Former Eastern Bloc, Part 2:

Selection of Women Representing Native Ethnic Groups from the Southern Caucasian Region, Central Asia, and Asian Russia

From left to right: Row 1: a) Kyrgyz b) Uzbek c) Abkhaz - Georgia Row 2: a) Turkmen b) South Ossetian - Georgia 3) Shughni Pamiri - Tajikistan Row 3: a) Shughni Pamiri - Tajikistan b) Kazakh c) Armenian Row 4: a) Kazakh b) Uyghur - Kazakhstan c) Georgian Row 5: a) Kyrgyz b) Sakha (Yakut) - Russia c) Tuvan - Russia Row 6: a) Telengit - Russia b) Buryat - Russia c) Buryat - Russia Row 7: a) Altai - Russia b) Nivkh - Russia c) Khakas - Russia Row 8: a) Altai - Russia b) Russian Cossack c) Chelkan - Russia

Source: "Les Origines de la Beauté" project by Natalia Ivanova

Pamir Winter - Matthieu Paley

"Khaltcha and Abdul Muttalib smoke opium several times a day - like approximately 20% of the Kyrgyz [in the Afghan Pamir Mountains]. "We started smoking when we lost our first child," says Abdul. "Every year, one of our children would die" - often from diseases easily treatable elsewhere. Only one, a son, survived to age five. Then he, too, passed away. "We lost 11 children, we are unlucky."

In the Wakhan corridor, even a notebook can be a precious object to keep: education here is not a foregone conclusion. And this green-eyed child, he seems to want to underline this by holding his (single ?) notebook before asking his father’s permission to show it to us.

Mountain guide Safina Shoxaydarova dances with friends at her traditional Pamiri wedding in Khorog, Tajikistan.