Is Central Asia getting a new country? This is a story that you're really not seeing anywhere
And while that might be because it's not really that relevant, I think it might be more relevant
than we think. Today we associate Central Asia with the Istans, right? Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. And it is inside this last one, Tajikistan, that
a new country might emerge. And don't worry, it doesn't break the name trend. It would be called
Badakhshan. I guess that kind of does break the name trend. It's not an istan. It just ends with
an. So, I don't know. You can look at it whichever way you prefer. So, where even is this place
Here is Tajikistan. Now, if we take almost half of the country's territory in the east
you get Gorno-Badakshstan, the largest autonomous region of the country located in the Pamir
mountains. That's actually what the name means. Gorno just comes from the Russian word
GORNI for mountainous. It literally means mountainous Badakshstan. Badakshstan itself is older and more interesting It is traced back to a Sasanian Middle Persian title Bedaks which was some kind of high official a governor or maybe like a viceroy of a region
The Persian suffix, An, means land of, or place of. So, Badakshan is basically the land belonging to the Badaks, a governor's domain that turned into a place name
So the full name, Gorno-Barakshan, is basically the mountainous part of the governor's land, if you will
Today, it makes up 45% of Tajikistan's land area, but population-wise, only a minuscule 2%
Its capital city is Korok, a town established in 1932, but which can trace its origins to Russian imperial fortifications
It's down by the border with Afghanistan. I guess that's another Istan we could include in our Central Asia list
The city is home to only 30,000 people. The shape of it is quite odd along the confluence of the Guni and Pani rivers
The region's altitude is quite high. The average is about 3,500 meters
Some locals call it the roof of the world So right away it huge remote isolated not connected to the rest of the country all that well which already makes it feel like its own place
And something else that maybe makes it a prime candidate to be a nation of their own
is the fact that they are not populated by Tajik people like the country that they belong to
The rest of the country is populated by Tajiks, the ethnic group that give their name to the country
But this region instead is home to the Pamiris, named in connection to the Pamir mountains
They're not ethnic Tajik, not Persian-speaking either, and not Sunni Muslims like the rest of the country
Instead, they speak Pamir languages or dialects, Shugni, Vaki, Roshani, and others
They're not dialects of Tajik, they're their own thing, they're separate Iranian languages
And religiously, they are different from the rest of the country too, being predominantly
Ismaili Shia, following the Aga Khan, and culturally they have a mountain identity that's
deeply tied to other local traditions. And the religious difference is quite interesting and quite important for their sense of being different from the rest of the country Ismaili Shia Islam is a branch of Shia Islam that like all Shiaism traces their leadership after the Prophet Muhammad through his cousin and son Ali
But while most Shia Muslims believe that the line of Imams ended in the 12th one, who is
hidden and will return one day, Ismailis follow a different line of succession and believe
in a living Imam, who is currently Prince Karim Aga Khan IV. The Pamiris follow this faith mostly
due to their geographic isolation and the historic exposure to Ismaili missionaries across the
centuries, especially during the periods where the mountainous regions were loosely connected
to Persian and Central Asia cultural spheres rather than the Sunni Islamic centers that then
influenced the rest of the region, especially the rest of Tajikistan in their case. And these people
the Pamir, are so much something of their own that they even have a unique flag to represent
their ethnicity. This one, it's pretty cool and would, if I say so myself, make a great national
flag. It's a white field with two diagonal stripes along the center, green and red. And the flag is
an interesting point because it represents Pamir people as a