The Yagnob Valley is one of Tajikistan’s most culturally-rich and fascinating valleys with a language all its own that dates back to the days of the Sogdian Empire and traditions that predate the arrival of Islam. Not to mention, it’s home to stark landscapes and beautiful peaks.

Yagnob is a narrow valley cut by a river bearing the same name where residents of ancient Sogdiana sought refuge following their exodus from their homeland to the Zeravshan Valley where their leader Divashtich would be murdered by the Umayyads during the Arab Conquests of Transoxiana. Knowing that they needed to escape, the Sogdians trudged over the steep mountain passes from the Zeravshan Valley over to the Yagnob Valley where they discovered this beguiling and difficult-to-reach location and started establishing villages.

The Sogdians remained here, almost completely untouched by outside influence until the late 19th century, speaking their ancient language and continuing to practice their own traditions which meld elements of Islam, Zoroastrianism, and other religions. Obviously, their practices would morph and they would become known as the Yagnobi.

The Yagnobi suffered a bleak fate as its people were ripped from their longtime homeland and into forced labor over in the Fergana Valley picking cotton under the Stalin regime. Many succumbed to the extreme heat in the valley, something the Yagnobi were not used to.

Little by little, following the Perestroika, Yagnobis began to return to their homeland, again populating their abandoned valley villages and sharing their mother tongue with the next generation.