It’s 5:30 a.m. and the bustle has already begun at the Panjshanbe Bazaar, one of the largest in Tajikistan. Vendors unload vans of cabbages. Pigeons flock outside the mosque next door. A portrait of President Emomali Rahmon looms above.
Rahmon has been in power since 1992, overseeing the Central Asian country since shortly after its independence from the dissolving Soviet Union. Mountainous and the poorest of the 15 countries that emerged, Tajikistan saw a five-year civil war between the Russian-backed government and an opposition composed largely of democratic reformers and Islamists. Khujand was in the heartland for pro-government forces.
