Karategin
More actions
| Karategin | |
|---|---|
| Rasht valley | |
| HistoricalGrown here in the past; no recent record either way | |
| Geography | |
| Country | Tajikistan |
| Province/State | Districts under Central Government Jurisdiction |
| Coordinates | 39.14, 70.80 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 12,000 km² |
| Terrain | Valley of the Surkhob (middle Vakhsh) between the Alai and Hisar ranges and the Peter I Range; approximately Lakhsh, Rasht, Tojikobod, Nurobod and Roghun districts |
| Climate | |
| Climate Type | Continental; long winters with much snow, hot summers of about two months |
| Growing history | |
| Grown | from 1896[1] |
| Earlier names | Karategin, Каратегин |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Karategin, also called the Rasht valley, is a historical cannabis growing area in Tajikistan, in the valley of the Surkhob (Surkhab), the middle course of the Vakhsh, in the Districts under Central Government Jurisdiction.[2] In the 1890s it was a bekdom of the Bukhara khanate, with its centre at Garm.[3] The Danish explorer Ole Olufsen, who crossed it in September 1896, listed hemp among the crops grown on its irrigated land.[1]: 70, 124, 129
Geography
In 1895 Karategin was a mountain country in the south-east of the Bukhara khanate, on the middle course of the Vakhsh, which is called the Surkhab there. The valley of the Surkhab, which ran for 165 versts through Karategin, was its most populated part. The valley's eastern end lay at about 6,500 feet and Garm, in the west, at 4,520 feet. Karategin was bounded on the north by the Hisar and Alai ranges, on the south by the range of Peter the Great (the Peter I Range), beyond which lay Darvaz, and on the west by a line across the upper Ilyak, beyond which lay Hissar. The country covered about 9,500 square versts, four-fifths of it mountains.[3] Olufsen put Garm, on the northern bank of the Surkhab, at 1,402 metres.[1]: 126
The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopaedic Dictionary counted about 50,000 settled Tajiks and about 10,000 nomadic Kyrgyz in the east. Its climate was continental, with a long winter, much snow and a hot summer of no more than two months.[3] For Olufsen the province ran along the Surkhab from the mountain knot of Karamuk in the east to the Ab-i-Garm, about 60 kilometres south-west of Garm, in the west; the Tajiks lived in the west and the Kyrgyz in the east.[1]: 128 The beg of Karategin, who lived at Garm, had once been an independent ruler and, at the time of Olufsen's visit, paid the emir of Bukhara a yearly tribute.[1]: 126
The area takes in the districts of Lakhsh, Rasht, Tojikobod, Nurobod and Roghun, down to Obigarm, about 12,000 km².
Farming
The Tajiks of Karategin lived by farming, crafts and trade. The Brockhaus and Efron entry lists wheat, barley, lucerne, apples, apricots and a little grape. The fields were mostly sown to be watered by rain, while the gardens and vegetable plots were irrigated.[3] Olufsen also distinguished two kinds of field on the slopes. Wheat and barley were grown on those watered by rain. On the irrigated stretches the crops were millet, lucerne, hemp, tobacco, melons, turnips and cabbage, with durra and cotton in a few places.[1]: 129 Descending into the valley in September 1896, he saw villages with large gardens along the whole northern slope of the pass, fields cultivated up to the tops of the passes, and corn being brought down the slopes on sledges drawn by cows.[1]: 125
Nikolai Vavilov reached Garm in 1916 on his way to the Pamirs. He found it in "a wide, green, charming valley, covered with fields and gardens", where the crops were almost all irrigated. There he began collecting local wheat, barley and rye and a productive crown flax.[4]: 14
Hemp
Olufsen's list puts hemp among the irrigated crops of Karategin. It does not say what the hemp was grown for.[1]: 129 A. Semenov, writing in 1899 about the mountain Tajiks, with examples from Karategin and Darvaz, said that hemp and sesame were sown there only for their oil and had no other use in the mountains.[5]: 106
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No recent news items.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Olufsen, O. (1911). The Emir of Bokhara and his country: journeys and studies in Bokhara (with a chapter on my voyage on the Amu Darya to Khiva). Copenhagen: Gyldendal, Nordisk Forlag – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Rotar, Igor (13 September 2012). "Will Tajikistan's Karategin Valley again become a militant stronghold?". Eurasia Daily Monitor. Vol. 9, no. 166. Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Каратегин". Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона (in русский). Vol. XIV. St Petersburg: Brockhaus–Efron. 1895. p. 460 – via Wikisource.
- ↑ Vavilov, N. I. (1997). L. E. Rodin (ed.). Five Continents. Translated by Doris Löve; edited by Semyon Reznik and Paul Stapleton. Rome: International Plant Genetic Resources Institute. ISBN 92-9043-302-7 – via CGSpace.
- ↑ Семенов, А. (1899). "Отношения к детям у горных таджиков". Этнографическое обозрение (in русский). XLII (3): 99–107 – via Internet Archive.