Tajikistan

Hunting for a Tajik in those days was not of any interest. This could be judged by the fact that the Dushanbe State University had a team of hunters consisting of one person – Akramov Yahya Mamurovich, who is also the head of the department of mathematics, he is the chairman of this society. What brought us together, I do not even remember. But it was with him, and hunting took place in the mountains.
Why do I want to start a story about hunting in Tajikistan with a turtle?
Unusual, most remembered. We arrived at the foot of the mountain to search for kekliks along the bed of the dried river. The landscape there is about the same as the mountains in my homeland near the Caspian Sea, i.e. earthen hills, only higher. My attention was attracted by strange dark spots, approaching, I saw that these were turtles. They were not just a lot, but a lot, and of different sizes. It turned out that we were in the mating period, so they povylazili. It is surprising how much they show agility in the mating season, so the expression is slow like a turtle, in a certain period of turtle life is not confirmed.
Together with my irreplaceable friend Lesha Mytskin, we packed a few pieces into the bag and brought them to the parking lot so that the pilots could disassemble the living toys to their children, but the unclaimed turtles, sighing, “rushed” back to the mountains …
At present, hunting of wild goats and sheep is popular in the Pamir mountains, but mostly foreigners hunt, who, for the sake of trophy horns, are ready to pay a decent amount. Yes, and the hunt itself is accompanied by at least two rangers. They will not just find and substitute for the shot of a mountain sheep, but also drag back an exhausted foreigner along with the trophy.
Climbing falls to a height of more than 3,000 meters, where there is not enough oxygen, and people who are not accustomed to such conditions quickly lose their strength. One of the airfields, where I had to fly, was in the gorge, and it was necessary to start to descend from the very tops of the mountains, and very often on the snowy slopes a chain of stiffened mountain rams was visible – huge mountain rams.
Porcupine One of the hunts, where I was invited, passed far into the mountains. It was supposed to hunt for a boar. The gorge was a continuous thickets of pistachio and pomegranate trees and other southern shrubs, among which it is simply impossible to climb through. The huntsman ran the dogs, specially put on the boar, and we stood over the animal paths, waiting for the flock to run out. But as it turned out, someone before us scared the animals and the hunt did not work.
After dark, I was led to a barely murmuring brook to shoot a porcupine when it came to the watering place. They showed an almost indistinguishable path along which a beast supposedly appears. There was an incomplete moon, but sufficient visibility for aiming. About an hour passed before I heard a strange sound, I had never heard it before, and could not imagine who could publish it in the dark hundreds of kilometers before civilization.
It turned out to be a family of porcupines, consisting of three animals, which together spanked at a watering place, and the sound was made with needles, something like a rattle. They looked very awkward, and when the distance allowed, I shot, of course, at the greatest. I did not expect such agility from them, they literally disappeared into the dark. An hour later, with the help of dogs, we found a porcupine that I hit, he managed to hide in the undergrowth and ordered to live there for a long time.
As I was not persuaded, but I did not dare to try the meat, but they tell me that it is, well, very tasty.
For a long time I could not find a place where waterfowl can live. But still found. South of Dushanbe, as soon as you pass the pass, the Kurgan-Tube valley opens. There also flows a river called Vakhsh.
At first glance, this turbulent river of an incomprehensible dirty color gives rise to the thought that there is hardly any animal that can find food in such gloomy water. But it was not so. Ducks were not observed in the water itself, but when we decided to come closer to the river, the flocks rose directly from the shore, and some even at a distance of 10-50 meters from the shore. It remained to find a small backwater that would put stuffed, and the hunt took place. The ducks flew along the river above their heads. And it was the mallards, pintails and other river species.
Hunting in Tajikistan. As in the Caspian, ducks spent the winter in this valley, and from this they were exceptionally well-fed, and besides, they were not shy. At night, sitting by the fire was heard the howling of jackals, the cries of an eagle owl and a pheasant, well, straight from a horror movie.
Interesting events took place on this river. Once the rubber bait was placed, after a while the water suddenly ran out. I could not believe my eyes, the river in my eyes was turning into a stream. It turns out that somewhere there is a dam regulating the flow of water, and on the way of this river there is a dam, where a dam is installed that regulates the flow of water for irrigation.