RTWleg84

RTW Leg 84
1 Hour past Dawn.
OPCH-UTSS 416 nm
Chitral-Samarkand. Fly over the Hindu Kush and Pamirs through Tajikistan and on to Samarkand in Central Asia.
ETE: 2.5 Hours.
Terminal Departure (Terrain NOTAMS) and Terminal Arrival (Terrain NOTAMS)

Departing from Chitral we must gain sufficient altitude to cross the main range of the Hindu Kush near Tirich Mir (25,230). Our route is to the north across a thin panhandle of Afghanistan into Tajikistan and then along the Panj river valley.

Chitral Valley with Tirich Mir in the distance.

- highest peak (25,230 ft [7,690 m]) in the Hindu Kush mountain system, lying 155 mi (249 km) north of Peshawar, Pak., in the North-West Frontier Province near Afghanistan. The Upper Tirich Glacier basin is formed by Tirich Mir East, Tirich Mir (the main summit), peaks to the west, and another group to the north; these peaks form a horseshoe-like semicircle. High precipices rise over the Lower Tirich Glacier and are considered avalanche threats by climbers. The first recorded ascent of Tirich Mir was made by Norwegians in July 1950.

The Hindu Kush is one of the great watersheds of Central Asia, forming part of the vast Alpine zone that stretches across the continent from east to west. It runs northeast to southwest and divides the valley of the Amu Darya (the ancient Oxus River) to the north from the Indus River valley to the south. To the east the Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamirs range near the point where the borders of China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan meet, after which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan, finally merging into minor ranges in western Afghanistan. It was through the high passes of the Hindu Kush that invaders from Central Asia brought their Indo-European language into South Asia about 1500 BC. Historically, the passes have been of great military significance, providing access to the northern plains of India to such conquerors as Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, the Mongols Genghis Khan and Timur (Tamerlane), and their descendant Babur, the first Mughal emperor. During the period of British rule in India, the Indian government was keenly concerned with the security both of these passes and of an associated physical feature to the south, the Khyber Pass. The Hindu Kush range has rarely constituted the frontier between major powers but has usually formed part of an intermediate buffer zone.

The name Hindu Kush derives from the Arabic for "Mountains of India." Its earliest known usage occurs on a map published about AD 1000.

The RTW Buzz route is crossing the region and will touch repeatedly in territory where the "Great Game" of empire was and still is being played.

The GREAT GAME evolved from the combination of Napoleonic ambition, British expansion beyond the borders of India (present-day India and Pakistan) and Persia (present-day Iran) in the latter part of the 19th Century and Russian expansion east and south. It was a clash of imperial powers in a no-man's land north and east of the Himalayas and resulted in two major conflicts for the British: the First and Second Afghan Wars, as well as a score of minor skirmishes. For the Russians, it was a slow, progressive movement east and southeast over some of the most hostile territory on the planet until they met the British and Chinese. Once the empires collided, machinations of state, intelligence tradecraft, and military adventures of the Russian and British Empires became what was to be known by the British as the GREAT GAME. Called "a tournament of shadows" by Count Nesselrode, the Russian Foreign Minister, the contest paid unanticipated dividends in the form of knowledge. Eager to fill in the map’s "blank spaces," spurred by dreams of glory, propelled by general staffs and geographical societies, Russian, British, Swedish, German and American contenders brought to light the natural and cultural wonders of inner Asia, exhuming lost cities on the Silk Road and determining the sources of all the great rivers of Asia. The history of the great game is replete with tales of infiltrators, spies, puppet kings, mysterious terrorist with single names, and bloody battles.

The Buzz route manager has not obtained or asked for official permission from the Taliban to cross Afghan airspace. The next section of the route is at pilots risk/discretion. The RTW Buzz route "sneaks" across a narrow section of Afghanastan’s Vakhan corridor crossing into Afghanistan at waypoint PADDY and crosses the Tajikstan frontier 12 miles further at waypoint FIRUZ. The route continues directly over the Afghan/Tajik frontier following the Panj (Panz) river valley northward with the Pamirs on the east and the Badahkshan region of Afghanistan on the other side of the river on the west. The only visible city in this portion of the route is Khorog approximately 40 miles before reaching the TOPAZ waypoint. There is an airport with at Khorog but not in FS2000.

Vakhan also spelled WAKHAN, OR WAKHAN CORRIDOR, a mountainous region and panhandle in the Pamir Mountains of extreme northeastern Afghanistan. From the demarcation of the Afghan frontier (1895-96), the panhandle formed a political buffer between Russian Turkistan, British India, and China. It is now bounded by Tajikistan (north), China (east), and Pakistan (south).

Panj also spelled PYANDZH, headstream of the Amu Darya in Central Asia. It is 700 miles (1,125 km) long and serves as part of the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The Panj River is formed between the Hindu Kush and the Pamir Mountains by the junction of the Vakhan River (Afghanistan) and the Pamir River (Afghan-Tajik border) just southeast of Karl Marx Peak. Fed by glacier streams, it flows southwest, then north, and finally southwest again, joining the Kowkcheh River to form the Amu Darya.

They're known locally as Bam-i- Dunya (the Roof of the World) and once you're in the Pamirs,

it's not hard to see why. They are the node from which several of the world's highest ranges radiate, including the Karakoram and Himalaya to the south, the Hindu Kush to the west, and the Tian Shan straddling the Kyrgyz-Chinese border. A network of high, wide valleys nestles amongst the 7000m (23,000ft) plus peaks, but for the most part the Pamirs are too high for human settlement. Instead the slopes and valleys are inhabited by hardier creatures such as the Marco Polo sheep, the elusive snow leopard and the even more elusive 'giant snowman'.

The Pamiris who inhabit the high altitude valleys speak a multitude of Pamiri dialects and are Ismailis, a breakaway sect of Shia Islam. They have no mosques, no clerics and no weekly holy day. The spiritual leader of the Ismailis is the Aga Khan, a Swiss-born businessman and horse-breeder revered by the Pamiris as a living god. It's the Aga Khan's charity that currently provisions the area, keeping starvation at bay, since the Pamiris backed the losing side in the civil war and haven't exactly been inundated with government aid.

Not having two potatoes to fry together has done nothing to lessen the hospitality of the Pamiris, whose natural inclination is to share. Since travel in the Pamir region is beset with obstacles - such as the absolute dearth of transport and food - you will no doubt experience this hospitality during your visit.

There are plenty of isolated farmsteads along the mountain routes and these operate as rough-and-ready guesthouses. You can expect to be offered floor space, a pungent sheep-skin blanket and a hot bowl of sher chay, tea with goat's milk, salt and butter. To avoid the acute discomfort of discovering that your host has just slaughtered the last family chicken in your honor, bring all your own provisions into the area since there are no shops or eating houses in the Pamirs.

The main town in the region is Khorog (pop 22,000), the capital of the autonomous region of Gorno-Badahkshan. It lies 2000m (6560ft) above sea level, strung out irregularly along the slopes of the dashing Gunt river. The flight from Dushanbe to Khorog is one of the most exhilarating (and terrifying, depending on your confidence in Tajik pilots) you'll ever have the (mis)fortune to make. For most of the 45-minute flight the aircraft scoots along mountain valleys, flying in the shadow of rock faces with its wingtips so close you could swear they were kicking up flurries of snow. If you get nervous, console yourself with the knowledge that only one plane has failed to make the trip in recent years - and that was shot down by rocket fire from Afghanistan

The RTW Buzz continues north of Khorog towards the highest mountain in the Pamir’s. As you approach the waypoint TOPAZ look off to your right and you will see a peak higher than the surrounding mountains in the distance. Formerly named Pik Communism the highest mountain in the former Soviet Union is now called Pik Imeni Ismail Samani. The route then turns east towards the capital of Tajikistan: Dushanbe while avoiding further overflight of Afghan territory.

Tajikistan is one of those "stan" places (like Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.) we skip over in geography lessons. The word stan means two things. First, it means Muslim homeland. Second, it is named after the tribe or people (Afghan, Turkmeni, Kazak, Uzbek etc.) who claim it as their homeland. The problem here is that one man's home can be another man's...well, home--the crisp clean lines on a map don't necessarily translate as borders after the Russians were through rearranging them.

To say there is a civil war would assume that there are two clearly defined sides in a conflict. The truth is that in Tajikistan there is no solid definition--only that if a warlord doesn't like what the Russian backed stooge of the week says, he fights back. You can always tell if a peace agreement is about to be signed by the number of bombs that go off in Dushanbe.

This mountainous, sparsely populated country is hard, ugly, deadly and controlled by tribes and clans. If space dictates simplification it could be said that the western third is lowland plain with most of the infrastructure and civilization while the country ascends in height and descends in civilized amenities towards the east. The borders are not marked because only Afghan drug smugglers brave the narrow mountainous passes into its rough and tumble neighbors of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan. Remote border posts manned by bored and brutal veterans of Afghanistan have become high speed distribution centers for the ancient but rapidly-expanding Afghan drug trade. In between buying drugs, they also fight skirmishes with Tajik separatists, rogue warlords and each other.

But if you thought the Russians just started killing Tajiks (or vice versa as is more often the case) in the last few years, you need to brush up on your history. China, Russia and Afghanistan have been using the area called Tajikistan as a battleground ever since the Mongols under Tamerlane came cruising through. Tamerlane's habit of making mountains of skulls make today's terrorist seem like Jimmy Carter. In 1717, an entire Russian army that came to explore Tajikistan was killed. Even in 1917, there was a group of terrorists called the basmachis who fought the Bolsheviks for an independent Muslim homeland. They were defeated after four years and fled to Northern Afghanistan creating the nucleus of the current Tajik rebellion.

When the area was known more appropriately as Central Asia, Stalin (a Georgian mountain boy) decided to chop his Southern real estate into five quasi ethnic clumps. His artificial boundaries were designed to lump together and divide minorities. The Russians created a Tajikistan to be an autonomous satellite of Uzbekistan in 1924 and then changed to a full union republic in 1929. In the Russian tradition of totally screwing up ethnic and indigenous history, they left 475,000 Tajiks in Uzbekistan and every important government position was usually run by a round-faced, hard drinking Soviet from the north. Things were relatively calm (or undocumented) under the iron fist of Mother Russia. In the '80s a fundamentalist group called the Islamic Resistance Party began pushing for Tajik nationalism and started to raise hell. They really didn't come into their own until 1990 when the Russians threatened to resettle Christian Armenians in Muslim Dushanbe. In 1991, when the rest of post-Soviet central Asia declared independence, Tajikistan's lack of national wherewithal and importance as a buffer zone for Russia, delegated it to its current status as an independent republic. The population magically voted in a corrupt communist government. This didn't sit well with some locals, who decided to take over the presidential palace to install a coalition government run by Akbarshah Iskandarov. Other factions also realized that the gun was much more efficient than the ballot box and began to use bullets instead of stern memos to get their point across. The lines broke down as the Moscow-friendly old liners from the North battled the Kulyabis from the south. The civil war erupted in a very nasty shootout until 1993. Over 40,000 people lost their lives in this flare-up and not too many folks in the west even heard of the massacre. The ethnic cleansing and precarious political structures opened the door to the Russian army who then stepped in to baby-sit their puppet ruler Imamali Rakhmanov (from the Kulyab district) and then proceeded to spank all the various warring factions. Seemingly blind to the history lesson dealt them in Afghanistan, Russia still views Tajikistan as a buffer zone and does not want nasty Islamic fundamentalists sneaking in to mess up their nice Moscow neighborhoods.

The Buzz route changes course at Dushanbe, enters Uzbekistan and then continues on to our destination for this leg: Samarkand

Please note that these RTW Narratives are produced using materials from various sites, in print and on the web. They are intended for the private use of the RTW Buzz pilots and are not meant for public dissemination.