GORNO-BADAKHSHAN

Вилояти Мухтори Кӯҳистони Бадахшон

The village of Ishkashim in Nagorno-Badakhshan was once the southernmost point of the former Soviet Union. Today, the high mountain region is part of the Tajik Republic and an autonomous oblast within it. 
Almost the entire region in the middle of the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains lies at an altitude of 3500 meters or more. 
The peaks of the mountains still bear names reminiscent of the country's Soviet era: Karl Marx Peak, Lenin Peak, Mayakovsky Peak, Peak of the Revolution or Peak of the Soviet Officer.   

This rather barren landscape is inhabited by around 212,000 Badakhshans (also known as mountain Tajiks). A significant number of them are Pamirians, some of whom speak various south-east Iranian languages related to Pashto. 
Some Kyrgyz and other ethnic groups also live in the sparsely populated east. The social center is located in the capital Khorugh and along the Panj River, which separates Tajikistan from Afghanistan and the Wakhan Corridor geographically but less so culturally. Most families have relatives on both sides of the river and adhere to liberal Ismaili Islam. Under the Taliban's reign of terror, the neighboring parts of Afghanistan were considered one of the few places without the influence of these self-proclaimed holy warriors.

The pictures were taken in the Panj and Bartang valleys, as well as on the even higher plains in the north on the way to Kara-Kul along the Pamir Highway and in Bulunkul, one of the coldest inhabited places on earth.