<-practicalities | intro | dushanbe & khorog->
Letters of Introduction 
Visas
GBAO permits
OVIR registration
The Tajik government places a formidable array of obstacles in the path of any westerner seeking to visit the country. These are stressful, time-consuming and expensive to overcome; and when you are in the country they furnish officials with pretexts for further vexations and exactions.
Travellers are often willing to put up with such things for the sake of gaining access to a little-visited place, but Tajikistan is now sufficiently on the tourist circuit to allow dispassionate consideration of whether it is worth the hassle.
Letters of Introduction
When we started the application process, the only way a British national could obtain a visa by post was through the Tajik embassy in Vienna, which required a supporting Letter of Introduction. We applied for one through Stantours, paying double for the fast service, and eventually received one in the time quoted for the slow service.
Visas
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Presidential palace |
By the time we received the LOI, the Tajiks had opened an embassy in London which was willing to supply visas by post without it. We found their service courteous and efficient.
The price of the visas was £80 and of GBAO permits £50 per head: which may be viewed, no doubt, in differing lights depending on the use which is made of the revenue.
GBAO permits
Vistors to the Pamirs need a GBAO permit, which can be obtained at the same time as the visa. The visa application form says ‘To receive the GBAO permit underline the names of regions that you intend to visit’ and lists ‘DARVOZ, VANJ, RUSHON, ISHKOSHIM, MURGAB, t. KHOROG’.
The trick here is that there are seven, not six, regions in the GBAO, the one left out being Roshtkala (ie. the Shakhdara valley). So when you think you are applying for all regions you are not in fact doing so.
Since the procedure and the price are the same however many regions (rayons) you apply for, I can’t see the point in being required to name them.
While we were on the road we met a Swiss cyclist Pieter who, like us, thought he had applied for all regions without actually having done so, and who following a change of plans had attempted to enter the Roshtkala region from Khorog. At the checkpoint he’d been refused entry and told that he’d have to pay again for a GBAO permit in order to visit the region. Needless to say he followed the Gunt valley instead.
We ourselves entered the Shakhdara valley from the east where there is no checkpoint. When we came to the checkpoint at the western end, the officials complained vigorously about the absence of a Roshtkala stamp in our passports (which we pretended not to understand), but they were unable to refuse us exit. Perhaps if they’d been in a less good mood we’d have had to pay a $300 fine.
A consequence of the permit system is that you are frequently stopped to have your passport checked. This happens at rayon boundaries and at Khargush, and we were once stopped gratuitously on the road by bored soldiers.
The troops at the Khargush checkpoint are notorious for their attempts to separate tourists from their possessions. Mostly they just ask you to hand over your camera, CDs, batteries... You decline, but you’d rather not be debating property rights with armed soldiers. It’s best, when approaching Khargush, to ensure that your documents share a pannier with dirty clothes.
Belongings left outside tents there have been known to volatilise overnight.
Bill Weir reports that an attempt was made to extort a bribe from him at the Gunt valley checkpoint east of Khorog.
OVIR registration
Every visitor to Tajikistan who is staying for more than 72 hours is required to register with OVIR – the visa ministry – within 72 hours of arrival. This can be done at Dushanbe, Khorog or Murgab amongst other places. The procedure at Dushanbe is said to be particularly burdensome, while that at Khorog is comparatively slick. Hence most visitors to the Pamirs delay registering until they reach Khorog, although this must often (as in our case) be more than 72 hours after their arrival in the country.
It helps if you bring the necessary documentation with you. You will need a photocopy of the info page and of the visa page of your passport, and a spare passport photograph. You can make copies locally but this will consume more time, especially if you are in Murgab during a power cut.
In Khorog the process begins at the bank next door to the OVIR office. You go to a small window and purchase two forms per person (at half a somoni each).
You take the forms to the table nearby, and ask to have them filled in from your passport details. Part of the form will be cut off for records, and the rest returned to you.
You now return to the small window and hand in what remains of the forms together with the registration fee, which I think is around $20 per head. More of the forms will be removed, and the strip which remains stamped and given back to you.
You take what’s left to the OVIR office next door, and hand it in at another small window along with your passport and the documentation needed. You are given a small piece of paper to be carried around loose between the leaves of your passport.
Checkpoints in the Pamirs are likely to check your OVIR registration at the same time as your GBAO permit.
We met a couple of trekkers who had passed through Tajikistan in order to trek in the Wakhan region of Afghanistan, and who had been unaware of the requirement to register with OVIR. They had suffered a $300 fine. The need to register is mentioned in all guidebooks, but Tajik embassies say nothing about it while you are applying for your visa.
The authorities in Murgab have invented a requirement (which has no legal standing) for visitors who have already registered at Khorog to re-register there. Most seem to call the bluff.