The Stans - Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan / by KARIN-BAM STOWE

Traveling across the Stans, I encounter the most amazing characters, a cowboy-gal, herding her families sheep’s, trying to earn enough money to escape to the city. An eagle hunter, that uses his birds to capture his and their dinners, the last traditional music maker without an apprentice to learn the dying craft. I meet a girl in a market collecting plastic to earn a dollar a day to keep her mother and bother alive. I travel the infamous Pamir highway, trek into the Hindu Kush, and experience atmospheres that conjure a lost time when one lived off the land and fought the elements for the basics of meat, water, and shelter.  

A five day ride over the mountains and into the land that truly time forgot to Song-kul lake, Kyrgyzstan.

The Pamir Highway traversing through Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, a road with sheer mile drops, looming mountains of cold and altitudes where no smoker should breath. Surviving the journey, is only half the pleasure. The other half is wanting to come back the way one came.

The Hindu Kush, a village kid, takes me high above his house so I can see into my future, he informs me there be bandits over the horizon, I wink at him and tell him to warn them to be ready.

She is not defined by her gender, she is just a horse person. She rides to help her family herd their animals, they are nomadic and follow the good weather and winds and then sell their stock. She is saving to move to the city and study tourism and leave the sessional lifestyle that has defined her families living for generations. Her younger sisters awaits in the cow-wings to take over.

The eagle hunter and his best friend sit and watch the land for signs of life, a rabbit for lunch. They live in a symbiosis with the land and sky. The eagle could fly away but “he sticks around for the company” the hunter tells me. They are living out their manhoods together.

I stick a GoPro on the eagle, chase after him, as it contemplates if I’m a worthy snack. I show the bird how he looks on camera, his eyes glint at me and seem to smile, he winks and is gone again to perform for the film. Such a pro.

Rutom Masain is the last Tajik traditional music maker. He lives upon a hill looking out over the valley he grew up in. He has no apprentice to teach his skills to. He exists in ever instrument he makes, when he plucks a string it invokes history that is vanishing.

Hw stares off into his past, awaiting someone to teach.

I met her in a market place, she was scurrying around, picking up plastic and rushing off. I asked her what she was doing, she was earning $1 a day for 3 hours work after school. Why, to look after her sick mother and her younger brother. She is now sponsored and studies to become a doctor. Sometimes you have to put down the camera and intervene.