Photo tours across Tajikistan.

«A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature»

Henry David Thoreau.

Tour Murghab gorge on Pamir.

Murghab town bestrides the Murghab River at an altitude of 3,650 m. Younghusband visited it in 1890 and wrote "It is a dreary, desolate spot… with a certain amount of grassy pasture and a few scrubby bushes by the river, but surrounded by barren hills, and bitterly cold.
How these Russian soldiers can support existence there is a marvel shut up in dreary quarters, with nothing whatever to do - week after week, month after month passing by in dull monotony…." Over a century later, nothing much has changed.
Downstream, the Murghab River flows west, meandering delightfully, as the main feeder of Lake Sarez - you can drive the dirt road 37 km to the final semi-permanent settlements of Madyan, beyond which you can walk (2 days, involving crossing the Murghab River) to the confluence with the Bazaar-dara stream and south to Bazaar-dara.
30 km downstream from Murghab you can cross a bridge and head up the tributary Yelisu River to the hot springs at Issyk-Bulok (4 km). From Issyk-Bulok you can continue to trek south for a full day into the head of the valley.
Upstream from Murghab, the river is known as Aksu, and passes through one of the widest, flattest sections of the plateau. The only way to travel through here is by jeep. On a clear morning in Murghab town you can see Mustagh Ata, (H-7546) in China, but it is 110 km away in a direct line.
The road up the Aksu valley, however, is dramatic, passing through the settlement of Tokhtomush to Shaimak (106 km) at 3840 m. The main road continues for a few more km to a hot spring. This is High Asia at its most exhilarating - you have the tip of the Wakhan Corridor in front of you, China to your left.
From Tokhtomush a road heads south-west 40 km to the tiny isolated shepherds' settlement of Chech-Tebe, but you will need a guide, even if you are driving. From Chech-Tebe you can continue south-west to the hunters' camp and hot spring at Djarty-Gumbaz (30 km), again, visited by Younghusband in 1890, past Kok-Djigut Lake to the eastern shore of Zorkul Lake (another 34 km), but again you will need a guide and, for Zorkul, permission from the Russian Border Forces in Khorog. 

Authority:
Books of:  "Mountain Fanye". Authors A.S. Mukhin, V.F. Gusev: «Nature of Tajikistan » publishing house " Idea ", 1982: Pavel Luknitsky.” Travel across Pamir”, «Molodaya guards », 1955:  "Pamir", publishing house " Planet " 1987, under edition of membercorrespondent AN the USSR M.S. Asimova.

Photos by
Alexander Petrov.