Turkmenistan will finance construction of a Turkmen-language school in the Tajik southern province of Khatlon.
The press center of the Turkmen Embassy in Dushanbe says the school to accommodate 540 pupils will be built in Dousti district.
The construction of the school named after Makhtoumkuli will begin this month and will last for two years.
Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedow has recently signed a resolution authorizing the conclusion of a contract with a contractor for the construction of a school in Tajikistan.
According to some data, about 25 thousand ethnic Turkmen live in four districts of Khatlon province: Dousti; Jaihoun, Qubodiyon and Shahritous.
It is a rather closed community. All of them have Tajik citizenship; their passports indicate their nationality – the Turkmen. Despite living among the Tajiks for a long time, the representatives of this national minority do not assimilate and carefully observe their ancient traditions and rituals. Notably, only few of them marry the Tajiks or representatives of other ethnicities of Tajikistan.
Experts of Khatlon province do not remember when exactly the Turkmen migrated to the south of Tajikistan. But many of them noted Turkmen carefully preserve the ancient customs of their ancestors, the subtleties of their language and culture.
It is known from historical sources that the Turkmens appeared in Dousti district about 400 years ago. Most of them are engaged in agriculture, and their role in the local community increases as time goes by.
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