I should have known this would be fake. Tajikistan puts out many stamps, but it has even more issues that it has declared illegal. So any Tajik readers I have may want to stop reading now. I wouldn’t want to tempt you with forbidden fruit or dogs. So besides Tajiks, slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from the today fake Philatelist.
Todays stamp features a German Sheppard and a Dalmatian. Tajikistan is spelled correctly in both English and Tajik. The currency is presented without detail but many Tajik real stamps also did it that way. The cancelation to order looks standard Soviet farm out. Yet Tajikistan topicals tend to cats, fish, and airliners. No dogs. Among fake issues banned are topicals featuring cartoon characters, The English Queen Mother, and Osama bin Laden, hopefully all not on the same souvenir sheet. Who buys this stuff? There are actually people in the world who take the time to carefully design and print stamps from small countries without authorization. With the hobby shrinking like it is, how can it still happen.
The stamp claims to be from 1998 but is not in the catalog so I can give no estimate of value. A realish 1997 stamp with a cat is valued at $2.00. A real stamp from 1998 Tajikistan featuring academic Bobojon Ghaferov is down at 30 cents. One could perhaps learn something of Tajikistan by reading up on Mr. Ghaferov. but from values it is obvious people would rather look at cute cat pictures on stamps that nobody mails.
Tajikistan got it’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It was one of the poorest areas of the Soviet Union. In the 1950s, Soviet Leader Khrushchev attacked the problem of low food production with a virgin land campaign that sought to put under cultivation land not previously used in places like Tajikistan. The effort had very little success as the climate was too dry and the soil too poor without fertilizers, which the Soviets were short of.
Tajikistan was heavily Muslim and soon after independence a civil war started with the goal of ethnically cleansing the area of non Tajik Soviets, especially Jews. The Russians responded with Speznas troops that were able to install a former electrician and labor leader Emonali Sharipovich Rahmononov as President for life. He dutifully changed his name to sound less Soviet and often emphasizes his Muslim religious beliefs. At the same time, he has banned beards, burkas, Arabic sounding names, Soviet sounding names, and loudspeaker calls to prayer. This he says allows the more unique to Tajikistan culture to flourish. The war in nearby Afghanistan has proved lucrative, as Tajikistan shares a border and therefore is useful to route military supplies through. Russian troops have been invited back in to help secure that border.
Tajikistan does not lack for stamps that portray the country as it desires to be seen. Yet all that gets out our topicals aimed at the young and young at brain. Hopefully local collectors will preserve these stamps so future generations of stamp collectors will have a guide to what Tajikistan was like. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.