Cultural tentative

I have arrived in Penjikent, at the Uzbek border, near Samarkand. I hesitate to vote for this city as the worste tajik city... and I have to stay in the region for 3 days, since my uzbek visa is valid only from Monday.

Two days ago, I was in Dushambe for my culinar and cultural days. At least, I tried. I honestely wanted to go in a museum and spend some hours to know Tajikistan better. The weather was perfect for such a visit: too hot and no wind. An even better reason was the sleeping Buddha. The biggest in Central Asia after the arrival of the Taliban in Bamiyan. I therefore decided to head to the Tajik Museum of Antiquity.

The entry was fine. I was asked to take off my shoes and the ground of all rooms seemed to be covered by carpets. It gave a quiet atmosphere. (And there was air conditioning...). After the hints of the head of the museum, I began with the prehistorical period. Just some piece of stones. And some explainations in Russian. Just a warm up.

As I was heading to the room of the Bactrian Epoch, I felt a shadow in my back. Nothing special. I proceeded and saw with satisfaction some explaination in English. Everything was very interesting. The face of Alexander was beautiful. Second bactrian room. The shadow is still behind me. And the lights of the first bactrian room get suddenly switched off. Surprise.

After two minutes in this room, a regular noise began to appear in my back. My moving shadow was doing some noise. Regular noise like a stone which is broken. Quickly, it makes my angry and I can not concentrate on the exhibition. I have to see what is my shadow. I decided a tactical turn to the previous table of totally uninteresting bactrian coin and saw what it was.

It was one of the tajik women who was in charge of the bactrian rooms. She just decided for I do not know which reason to follow each of my steps, switch of the lights when I left a room and eat her kurut. ( ball of old cheese. usually very hard and long to eat. Central asian bonbon).

I decided to leave the bactrian epoch in the hope that I would escape from my spy. I arrived in the arab epoch, listening carefully to the kurut noise. 10 seconds, 20 seconds. Halleluiha! She left. 30 seconds

Scrutch!

Chit, she found me. But since this room is not hers, she decided to pay a visit to her friend of the arab epoch. And they begin to speak together. I got really nervous and all stone and other jewellry of the arab epoch disappeared. I had to flee. My last hope was the sleeping buddha!

I almost runned to its room. The buddha was just beautiful, it gave a feeling of peace which was the exact thing I needed at this moment. I sat down to rest from my emotions. 1 minute, 2 min. Soo quiet... when...

Scrutch! Blablabla... They came to MY room. And they spoke even louder than before. I couldn't stay. I fled out of the museum.

The head of the museum came to me as I wore my shoes: How was the exhibition?

I lied.

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