Travel deep dive
Gorno-Badakhshan, the Mountain East of Tajikistan
Gorno-Badakhshan, the Pamir region, fills the mountain east of Tajikistan. In the west it is a land of deep valleys where villages of flat-roofed stone houses stand among poplars and apricot trees beside rushing rivers; in the east it rises to the high Pamir plateau, a bare, wide upland of pastures and lakes where the herders live in yurts in summer. The Panj river along its southern edge forms the Wakhan valley, with Afghanistan's Wakhan and the Hindu Kush across the water, and the people of the region, the Pamiris, keep their own languages and their Ismaili faith.
Updated 2026-10-08
The Wakhan valley
Between Ishkashim and Langar, the Panj flows through a broad valley of villages, fields and orchards, with the snow peaks of the Hindu Kush rising across the river. The valley's past stands along the road: the fortress of Yamchun high on a spur above it, with the hot springs of Bibi Fatima a short climb further, the ruins of the Kaakha fortress near Namadgut, the Buddhist stupa above the village of Vrang, and the rock carvings of hunters and ibex on the slopes above Langar.
Khorog and the western valleys
Khorog, the regional centre on the Pamir Highway, lies in a narrow valley where the Gunt joins the Panj, a town of tree-lined streets, a riverside park and a botanical garden on the slopes above. North of it, side valleys lead deep into the mountains: the Gunt and the Shokhdara with their villages, and the Bartang, a remote valley reached on a rough road that is closed in places by landslides and rivers, for travellers with time and a sturdy vehicle.
The high plateau
East of the valleys the land rises onto the plateau of the eastern Pamirs, mostly above 3,500 metres, an open country of grass, stone and salt lakes under a huge sky. Murghab, its main town, is a low settlement of whitewashed houses, home to Kyrgyz herders who take their yaks and flocks to the summer pastures. Further north, Karakul lies in a vast basin beneath the snow peaks, a deep blue lake with a small village on its shore.
Pamiri houses and homestays
The traditional Pamiri house is built around one large room with five carved wooden pillars and a stepped skylight in the roof, a room for living, sleeping and receiving guests that carries meanings of the Ismaili faith. Many families along the valleys and on the plateau take in travellers, cooking the Pamiri table for them, and a homestay is the usual way to sleep in the region: a place on the floor of the main room, meals of bread, soup, rice and salted milk tea, and the evening with the family. Shoes come off at the door, and modest dress is the custom.
The great peaks
The Pamirs hold the highest mountains of the former Soviet Union: Ismoil Somoni Peak, at 7,495 metres the summit of Tajikistan, Lenin Peak on the border with Kyrgyzstan, and Korzhenevskaya, with the Fedchenko glacier, one of the longest glaciers outside the polar regions, among them. They are climbed on organised expeditions in high summer and are the preserve of experienced mountaineers; for most travellers they are the peaks seen from the road and the passes.