Tourists in winter Dushanbe

The weather has cleared up and I wanted to be out and about under a blue sky. First stop, on Tuesday afternoon--the Botanical Gardens.

 The view north (and probably the air quality in Dushanbe) is a little spoiled by the new coal-fired electric plant built by the Chinese. On the other hand, we haven't had any of the electrical outages we'd been warned about.

Even on a chilly weekday, there were some couples:

and some college students having fun:

Second stop, on Wednesday morning, Victory Park, on a hilltop in the east of the city. It's the site of a WWII memorial and the tomb of unknown soldier, as well as a restaurant with great views. Probably because of a big event planned for tomorrow (more on that later), we weren't allowed to go up to the memorial, but we got a taste of the views:

Looking south

Looking west over the city

Looking north

Here's a view of those same gorgeous mountains from a neighborhood street at the base of the hill the park is on:

(near the beer factory, if you want a landmark)

Looking forward to going back to both of these places when fruit trees and flowers are in bloom.