DUSHANBE-TBILISI — My interest in Tajikistan was dictated not only by the fact that this country has rich traditions in culture and sport, with vast and interesting history, but by the fact that the current head coach of national football team of Tajikistan from March of this year is Batumi born Gela Shekiladze who played as defender for national team of Georgia in 1997-2002, for Batumi “Dinamo” (1990-1998), as well as Belgian teams “Lierse” (1998-2002) and “Roeselare” (2002-2003) and Ukrainian FC “Arsenal” (2003) and CSKA (2004).
From 2007 to 2010, Gela worked as a coach. He was a coach for the youth and junior national teams of Georgia, head coach for a number of clubs in Indonesia (2010-2013) and Bosnia (2014-2015), second coach for the national teams of Afghanistan (2015-2016) and the Maldive Islands (2018-2020), assistant coach for the national team of Tajikistan from 2022 to February 2024, and head coach of that national team for the last nine months.
His assistant in Tajikistan’s national team is Tamaz Bokeria, who played in Tbilisi clubs “Norchi Dinamoeli” (the end of 1980 – the beginning of 1990) and “WIT-Georgia” (1997-1999), employee of the Georgian football federation (in 2005-2009), sports director of football clubs “Zestaponi” (2009-2010) and “Lokomotiv” Tbilisi (2013-2022). From 2022 he is working as assistant head coach of the national team of Tajikistan.
Coming from this, the most important part of this trip to Dushanbe for me was meeting with them and visiting the matches between the national teams of Tajikistan and Afghanistan (19 November) and Nepal and Afghanistan (16 November).
My meeting with Gela and Tamaz was on 18 November in Dushanbe in the hotel (The Rumi Hotel), where the Tajikistan national team was stationed. At first, we communicated in the lobby of that hotel, and later at a press conference of G. Shekiladze for journalists of Tajikistan. On my question “Has the Tajikistan national team the potential to successfully undergo a qualifying tournament for the World Cup and land in the World Cup in coming years”. He answered it very clearly “Yes, I am sure of it, Tajikistan football has the potential and resources in order to fight for a spot in the World Cup and achieve that goal. I will be glad if at this World Cup in the same group will be Tajikistan and Georgia, the national team of my homeland”.
Shekiladze discussed about innovations and goals of Tajikistan national tea, about the importance of winning against Nepal on 13 November (4:0) in order to establish players’ mood for the match against Afghanistan. On 16 November national team of Afghanistan suddenly lost to Nepal 0:2 and because of that everyone expected that on 19 November it would be difficult for Tajikistan to win against Afghanistan. The match turned out intense and finished with a win of Tajikistan-3:1. More than ten thousand spectators, arrived at Republican Central Stadium (which holds around 25 thousand spectators), and the players of the national team of Tajikistan were given rounds of standing ovations for beautiful and technical game.
Special Spectators
Among the spectators of the match, were high officials of Tajikistan, as well as a famous journalist, expert in Georgian language and literature, translator from Georgian to Tajik and from Tajik to Georgian Barno Boeva. From 1988-1993 she studied at the philological faculty at Tbilisi State University, in 2005-2022 she translated to Tajik Georgian fairy tales and published 4 books in Dushanbe, from 2012 up to date she is chief editor of the Tajik Women journal “Bakhtofaroni Vahdat”( “Бахтофарони Вахдат»). In a discussion with the author of these lines, Barno mentioned that “she misses Georgia a lot”. “From childhood, I loved Georgian movies and songs, which is why it is not surprising that I immediately accepted in 1988 the offer of the Writers’ Union of Tajikistan to go to Tbilisi to study Georgian language and literature. I warmly remember the period of study in Tbilisi, unfortunately, I have not been in Georgia for 31 years, I hope that soon will come a day when I again will be able to arrive in Tbilisi and visit TSU, communicate with my coursemates and instructors ” -she stated. At this match, with her was her son Umarali fighter and prominent figure of the Georgian diaspora in Dushanbe Nukri Giorgadze, about him I will discuss this below.
The evening in memory of legends of Georgian culture
In 17 November in Dushanbe took place the evening in memory of legends of Georgian culture – composers Giya Kancheli and director Georgiy Daneliya. The evening underwent in cinema cafe “At Nukri” in center of Dushanbe, where representatives of Tajik filmography and culture gathered in order to discuss about beautiful music of Kancheli made for films of Daneliya.
Guests were greeted by the owner of the cafe, expert and connoisseur of movies Nukri Giorgadze, who personally was acquainted with many famous movie makers of Georgia, Tajikistan, and Russia. Nukri was born (in 1958) and raised in the city of Ozurgeti(Georgia), in 1983 he graduated from the faculty of journalism at The Tbilisi State University(TSU) , worked in Tbilisi, and since 1994 he has been living in Dushanbe. Regardless of his working place in the business sphere in Dushanbe, he as a creative person always actively took charge of conducting events for the popularization of Georgian culture and sport in Tajikistan, as well as in the development of cooperation between these two countries. Nukri stated interesting facts about G. Kancheli and G. Daneliya after he showed to participants of the evening some fragments of famous films and melodies of G. Daneliya. In addition, there were shown some records of performances of popular young Georgian musical groups and famous singers, who performed that music from movies of G. Daneliya.
A special pleasure to participants of the evening was the performance of Georgian songs by Khushbakht Davlatkadamov, who is a Tajik admirer and connoisseur of Georgian culture. He is a lawyer by profession but his performance of Georgian songs has amazed everyone.
In front of the gathered audience, the representatives of the sphere of movie and journalism of Tajikistan spoke. I want to especially underline the performance of Doctor of Historical Science and musicologist Bakhriniso Kabilova. She illustrated a deep knowledge of the creations of G. Kancheli and G. Daneliya and knowledge of Georgian culture. B. Kabilova shared the memories of personal contacts with Giya Kancheli and brought interesting facts about the director’s oeuvres. During his speech at this evening author of these lines thanked N. Giorgadze for propaganda of Georgian culture in Tajikistan, and for building a cultural bridge between these two countries. I expressed my hope that in the coming times events like this will be performed in large creative halls of Dushanbe with the attendance of representatives of both countries.
The meeting with colleagues and management of the TV channel “Varzish”
Additionally, I want to highlight the meeting with the General Director of “VarzishTV” Parviz Noriyon and employees of this TV station held in Dushanbe on 18-19 November. “VarzishTV” is the leading sports TV channel in Tajikistan. During this meeting with the general director and employees we exchanged our experience of working as a journalist, highlighting features of broadcasting of number of sports, we discussed issues related to the cooperation of journalists of Tajikistan and Georgia. Journalists of “VarzishTV” have prepared a special fragment about the goals of my visit to Dushanbe and about my meetings with figures of Tajikistan sports as well as about the direction of activation of cooperation between these two countries( 1) https://www.facebook.com/reel/1223207285596184 , 2- https://www.facebook.com/100091364660993/videos/1134063834999220/ ).
Tajik sports legend for cooperation with Georgia
During my recent stay in Dushanbe (November 16-21), I had the chance to meet with the legendary Tajik athlete, Vice President of the National Olympic Committee of Tajikistan Dilshod Jamoliddinovich Nazarov. Hammer thrower D. Nazarov is the 2016 Olympic champion, vice-world champion and five-time Asian champion. But the main thing is that he is the first and so far the only Tajik athlete to become an Olympic champion during the period of Tajikistan’s independence. The organizer of this meeting with Dilshod was the Secretary General of the NOC of Tajikistan Muhammadsho Abdullozoda.
Dilshod Nazarov told the author of these lines that “the NOC of Tajikistan intends to develop cooperation with the NOC of Georgia and is preparing a draft of the relevant agreement.” “We really want to develop cooperation with Georgia, in particular, we want to invite Georgian judo coaches to Tajikistan so that they can train our athletes. Georgia has an outstanding and world-renowned school of judo, we really appreciate it,” the legendary Tajik athlete noted.-0-
Tengiz Pachkoria-AIPS Member, Honored Journalist of Georgia
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