Guarding the gateway where the world begins and ends
"Murghab with low mountains, where the snow lies - almost all year, where the wind howls, blizzard and storm - grey all around, a deserted place"
With these lines, Tojiniso Aydimakhmadova, Lieutenant-colonel in the Customs Service of the Republic of Tajikistan, evokes the stark isolation of this remote region, where the territories of Tajikistan, China and Afghanistan approach each other. The small town of Murghab in the Pamir mountains is the point of customs inspection for the travellers coming into the country.
This is where the OSCE has designed and constructed a modern customs terminal at the junction of the roads coming from Kyrgyzstan to the north and China to the east, in response to a request by the Tajikistan government for help in controlling the contraband coming into the country. At the outskirts of the town, where yaks used to graze, an area of three hectares has been fenced in and three office and technical containers and a water tower have been built. The building of the customs terminal was supported by the Government of Japan. It includes state of the art equipment to detect precursor chemicals used in the production of heroin.
Temperatures often plunge below 50 degrees Celsius. My male colleagues and I used to do 15-day shifts, spending the long nights trying to gather some heat around ancient coke stoves which we fitted into old cisterns.
Aydimakhmadova was in Murghab to witness the erection of the first pole of the terminal at a ceremony last July. She had just completed a one-week course conducted for customs officials by the OSCE, on risk management and search and detection skills. The OSCE also offered similar training in Khorog and Dushanbe, to about 100 Tajik officers, and also to about 20 Afghan customs officers.
But much of the year, she spends in a spot higher and more remote still: the border crossing point to China at Kulma, 4,365 metres above sea level. From the plateau where the Murgab customs building stands, at a distance of some 80 kilometres, the snow-capped summit of the 7546-metre Muztagata mountain is visible behind the ridge of the Tajik-Chinese border. “Here I have spent many years and long nights of service,” recalls Aydimakhmadova, talking with the OSCE officers. She was a teacher in Murgab before she joined the customs service of Tajikistan in 1993. The border crossing point at Kulma was only open six months of the year. For many years, Tojiniso has spent those months posted there as chief customs inspector.
“Temperatures often plunge below 50 degrees Celsius, she recounts. My male colleagues and I used to do 15-day shifts, spending the long nights trying to gather some heat around ancient coke stoves which we fitted into old cisterns.”
The OSCE, as part of the Murghab project, has provided equipment for the points of entry at Kulma and also at Kyzlyart at the Kyrgyz border on the Pamir highway to Osh. It has donated escort cars that accompany the trucks coming over the border to Murgab. The cars also take the officers from their shifts to the relative comfort of Murgab, where they enjoy brief respites with their families before returning again to their places on the mountains at these remote gateways at the top of the world.