As we are getting closer to the Cyrus the Great Day 2019, we at WCHV look at parts of the world where people celebrate the life of the great Persian King, Cyrus.
One of these countries is the Republic of Tajikistan. Tajikistan is a country in Central Asia surrounded by Afghanistan, China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It’s known for rugged mountains and popular for hiking and climbing. The Fann Mountains, near the national capital Dushanbe, have snow-capped peaks that rise over 5,000 meters. The range encompasses the Iskanderkulsky Nature Refuge, a notable bird habitat named for Iskanderkul, a turquoise lake formed by glaciers.
Tajikistan was a part of Persian Empire and today, the country still celebrate the Persian New Year, Nawruz and most people speak Farsi. In fact, Cyropolis or “The City of Cyrus” which was an ancient city founded by Cyrus the Great in 544 BCE to mark the northeastern border of his Achaemenid Empire is believed to be the same location as the modern day city of Istaravshan in Tajikistan.
In the capital city, Dushanbe, the Cyrus (the) Great Park is a beautiful park with beautiful
statutes of animals as well as a large statute of the Persian King, Cyrus. In the video created by the Tajikistan tourism (below), they show the Cyrus Great Park on a beautiful spring day with women in colorful clothing walking and children playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Y-_MdQ-yE
The love of Persian culture in fact is quite apparent in Tajikistan as Dushanbe also has another park named after the great Persian poet, Rudaki. Abū ‘Abd Allāh Ja’far ibn Muḥammad al-Rūdhakī, better known as Rudaki, and also known as “Adam of Poets”, was a Persian poet regarded as the first great literary genius of the Modern Persian language. Rudaki composed poems in the modern Persian alphabet and is considered a founder of classical Persian literature.
In another part of Dushanbe one can find the statute of another Persian poet, Ferdowsi. Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi, or Ferdowsi was a Persian poet and the author of Shahnameh, which is the world’s longest epic poem created by a single poet, and the national epic of Greater Iran.
