Sergei Zharov. The Russians Are Back. References

Movies. — Internet Resources. — Paper Maps. — Internet Maps. — Books for Travelers. — Books on the Taliban. — Books on Islam.

Movies

The Beast of War (or The Beast), director Kevin Reynolds, 111 minutes, 1988 (IMDB)
The only good movie on the war in Afghanistan, and also a great movie by itself. A Russian tank is lost in a desert, and a group of Afghans hunt it with a broken grenade launcher. One has to wonder why the actors have never again acted like this in subsequent movies. They obviously could, as this movie shows, but they never did. Dzundza got fat and became a supporting actor. Stephen Baldwin has had some good star roles since that, but he has been typecast as a comedy actor. And I have never seen Jason Patric again. Pitiful.

Internet Resources

If you search for internet pages with the word afghan in their addresses, you will get about a million results. Most of them are totally useless. The very few good sites I have seen are listed below.

http://www.flyariana.com — a site of Ariana with flight schedules, prices, Afghan consulates, and tons of errors and typos.

http://www.flykamair.com — a site of KamAir, an Afghan air carrier that flies to Dubai and services many local routes. Its designers have managed to get hopelessly lost in just ten web-pages. Still, one can find useful information on prices and schedules here, as well as the contact info.

http://www.ahmadzahir.com — a site on Ahmad Zahir. His biography is the most interesting thing since it is hard to find it in an understandable language. There are also his pictures and some mp3 records.

http://www.afghanresources.org — a bibliography of over 8,000 books and articles on Afghanistan, some of which have been transferred to PDF and are available for downloading. The only issue is the search engine — by a keyword only, 10 results per page only.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/aftoc.html — a review of Afghan history in Library of Congress (US). Well written, unbiased, but very brief. It ends in 1997, and the Taliban's actions are still called “achievements”. The theme of Afghanistan potentially breaking apart and being absorbed by neighboring countries is also interesting.

http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com — a formerly useful internet forum Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree; now it is overtaken by UN/NGO people successfully trying to silence independent tourists.

Paper Maps

You only need one map of a country, and the mentioned below Nelle's is enough. Moreover, you can go without any country maps whatsoever since it is unlikely that you will go to some obscure places in addition to the main cities. Therefore, it is enough to have a small, A4-size, map of the country to get a general idea on Afghanistan's geography. Various bigger-than-a-city maps have no practical value and are listed here as a souvenir only, as a nice-looking object you can put on a wall and look at after you come home.

Afghanistan — Nelle's Maps, 2001. — ISBN 3886186652. (Amazon)
The best and the easiest to buy map of Afghanistan. 15 km in 1 cm. Unfortunately, the country is divided into two halves, one half on each side, and one has to turn the map around all the time. There is a useful map of Kabul's center. Recommended.

Tactical Pilotage Chart — Defense Mapping Agency, 1992. (sample, 903 KB or buy)
American military maps, 5 km in 1 cm. Afghanistan is covered by the sheets 67-1055-G07A, -G06A, -G06B, -G06C, -G06D, -H07B, -H08A. A highly complicated product with clearly visible viciousness of a military mind. Not practical for a tourist trip and should not be brought on one. But a good souvenir, can be used as wallpaper.

Joint Operations Graphic — Defense Mapping Agency, 1992. (sample, 467 KB or buy)
Even more detailed set from the same company, 2.5 km in 1 cm. The sample sheet here is not Afghanistan but Iraq, but you can get the idea although it is not the best scan.

Topographical maps of Afghanistan, 1:50,000 — Soviet General Staff, 1985–1991. (sample, 108 KB or buy)
These combat maps are still secret in Russia, but you can buy them online. Just $81,600 for 1,653 scanned sheets.

Topographical maps of Afghanistan, 1:200,000 — Soviet General Staff, 1985–1991. (sample, 753 KB or buy)
It is 2 km in 1 cm, 123 sheets only, and the price is lower, from $1,476 for a set of paper originals to $7,380 for scanned copies.

Internet Maps

There are both many and few maps of Afghanistan in the internet. “Many” because there are many of them. “Few” because they are mostly useless. There is only one set of pre-war paper maps of five major cities, and a couple of digital sets have been made based on that one. Kabul has more variety, but it is mostly schematic products, there are no truly detailed maps. And non-major cities have not been mapped at all. Balkh, Ghazni, Lashkargah — forget about it.

But during the “war on terror” the media have cooked up tons of dramatic maps — of no practical for you value either. As a result, a search for afghan maps gets you an enormous number of web-sites most of which contain useless trash. Below I list everything more or less useful I could find after extensive search.

Various Maps

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/graphics/attack/zone_3.html — the final distribution of territories between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance by the moment of the American invasion, September 27, 2001. The map itself is 22 KB, but the page that contains it is bigger, and you can not get the map directly.

http://www.operations.mod.uk/img/veritas/afghanmap.jpg — a three-dimensional map of the country made by the British Ministry of Defense. More exactly, a satellite picture with clearly visible mountains. Great for getting a general idea of Afghan geography. It is interesting to compare it with the previous map of the areas controlled by the Northern Alliance at the height of its misfortunes — they were really pushed to the mountains. 196 KB.

From Russia with Love for Money

The very same secret maps of the Soviet General Staff, 2 km in 1 cm. You can not find your way within a city by these maps, but you can get a general idea of its environs.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/afghanistan/kabul.html — a set of marvelous and useless maps of the very same Soviet General Staff, but now they cover Kabul only, come in different scales including the unbelievable 100 m in 1 cm, and are served in a proprietary and incovenient format. Notice that you still can download the whole pages in that format and view them through a proprietary engine also available for download there. The most detailed map in this set covers the area directly south of Kabul University — currently in ruins.

Old Maps of the Cities

A few scanned maps from about 1970s. Even the originals were not that good, but there is nothing else anyway. Captions are in Dari. These maps can still be useful. There also are PDF versions of them — see below, — which are even better since they have English captions.

Old Maps Digitized

The listed above paper maps were converted to a PDF format and accompanied with English captions. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them. In terms of information they are no different from the paper maps and plainly trace the same lines, but there are English captions, the scale, and the direction to North. You can also magnify or shrink them, which is useful for printing them out.

Two maps in this set are of low quality, though. One is Jalalabad. It is an unprocessed and highly grainy scan of the paper map with the Dari captions rudely removed. Some places have been marked with reference numbers, but the numbers themselves are not commented on. Jalalabad remains the most mystic major city of Afghanistan in terms of maps.

The Kabul map honestly says it is a draft only. It is a completely useless product since they have tried to put the whole city on one A4 list — even the city center would be hard to understand with such scale. As a result, this is a maze of colored lines that is impossible to understand. And when you magnify it, you discover that the map does not really have any details. Do not bother to download.

Maps of Pakistan

http://kcm.co.kr/pakistan/map/isb/isb.jpg — a great map of Islamabad. Direction to the north is wrong, though, — it should be rotated 45 degrees clockwise. 3336×2094 pixels, 917 KB.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/world_cities/karachi.jpg — a very schematic map of Karachi. Trains from Karachi come to the station in the lower right corner. A set of parallel streets starting there is where the hotels and everything else is. The other train station is where you buy tickets. 1195×1474 pixels, 90 KB, 1983.

Watching from Above

A promising company Space Imaging will speedily get you a satellite picture of any place on the Earth. You can place an order online with a credit card, and it will be done in a couple of days. High quality pictures, up to one meter in one pixel. To find your way in the cities, they are even better than maps.

http://www.spaceimaging.com/gallery/enduring_freedom/kabul_9-7-00.jpg
Kabul, September 7, 2000, 5100×4108 pixels, 2.8 MB.
A very useful picture. A small hill slightly to the left and lower of the center is the Kolola Pushta fortress. The city area extending from it southeast to a wide street is Shahr-i-Naw. A round square in Shahr-i-Naw's northeast corner is Pushtunistan Maydan. To the left of it is the tall building of the Ministry of Communications — you can find it by its long shadow. This is where the cheap hotels are. In the lower left corner of the picture there is the campus of Kabul University, bordered by Asamayi mountain on the right and Ali Abad mountain on the top. Salang Wat street goes along Asamayi. Intercontinental Hotel is left behind the left border of the picture, and the zoo with the pig is not here either.

http://www.spaceimaging.com/gallery/enduring_freedom/jalalabad_1m_12-21-99.jpg
Jalalabad, December 21, 1999, 3003×2901 pixels, 3 MB.
A great shot, although many depicted things have been since destroyed. A park with the stars cut out in the grass is the Royal Palace, non-existent now. An H-shaped building with a blue roof on the left of it is Hotel Spinghar. A street below these two goes east and takes you to the restaurants, other hotels, markets, and money exchange. The street that goes south from the palace takes you to a building with a round blue roof — this is Habibullah's mausoleum. Going to the very south of Spinghar you will see a bus station with white cars. From here you depart to Kabul. The picture is useful enough to download and print it out.

http://www.spaceimaging.com/gallery/enduring_freedom/kandarhar_1m_7-3-00.jpg
Kandahar, June 3, 2000, 3669×2564 pixels, 2.3 MB.
Unfortunately, this is the newer part of Kandahar with various office buildings. You can see only a small part of the old city in the right part. Shahidan Chowk — a round square with a monument in the center — is clearly visible. Durrani's mausoleum and other interesting things are not here. A piece of cemeteries on the top. The bus station is not on the picture either. You can still download it to get a general idea of the old city's scale, but other than that the usefulness of this picture is limited.

http://www.spaceimaging.com/gallery/enduring_freedom/islamabad_downtown_1m_3-6-00.jpg
Islamabad, March 6, 2000, 7092×2191 pixels, 2.6 MB.
Nothing much to see. Besides, you can get a good free map of Islamabad in any government information center in Pakistan. The picture is taken under a big angle that makes many things obstructed by the trees. But you can still get a general idea of Islamabad distances and emptiness. On the right border there is the diplomatic enclave. The Iranian embassy is visible. To the left of it is the sector G–6 with the Afghan embassy. To the left of G–6 is G–7 with cheap hotels, but you can not see them. On the top of them are F–6, F–7, and F–8, and the top left corner is where the central mosque is.

Books for Travelers

Nancy Hatch Dupree, An Historical Guide To Afghanistan — Kabul: Afghan Tourist Organization, 1977. — 492 p.
A bible for anyone who comes to Afghanistan as a tourist. It is still highly relevant, despite having been published 27 years ago. It can be bought in many bookstores in Peshawar, Quetta, Islamabad, and Kabul. Highly recommended.

A. Fitzherbert, C. Mishra, Wakhan Mission Technical Report — Geneva: United Nations Environment Programme, 2003. — 104 p.(internet, 3.72 MB)
A great text on travels in Wakhan. Excellent photos, good maps, tons of useful information. Even humanitarian workers can be human sometimes. Adobe Acrobat format.

S. Sakaria, Concise English-Afghan Dari Dictionary — Kabul, 2002.
A pirated copy of an English–Dari dictionary. A short grammar section and enough words to get you around the whole country. It is sold in Kabul on Flower Street. Recommended.

Nick Danziger, Danziger's Travels: Beyond Forbidden Frontiers — Flamingo, 1993. — 448 p., ISBN 0586087060 (Amazon)
The book raises mixed feelings: it is interesting, but the author is an unpleasant jerk, and your money will go to his pocket if you buy the book. At the age of 26, in 1984, Danziger got a grant to travel along the Silk Route. Which at that time was practically impossible since it went through Iran, Afghanistan, and from Pakistan to China. The first two countries, naturally, did not issue tourist visas, and you could not get from the third one to the forth one. Still, he has managed to do it all, including illegal transit through Herat and Kandahar. The idea and the actual journey are appealing, but editors have asked Danziger to write about his feelings, too, and his shallow personality really spoils all the fun. I would recommend borrowing this book from a library or a friend, but financing Danziger with your money — no, avoid that.

Books on the Taliban

After 9/11 scores of writers rushed to putting new covers on their previously unpopular books on the Taliban.

Peter Marsden, The Taliban: War and Religion in Afghanistan — Zed Books Ltd, 2002. — ISBN 1842771671 (Amazon)
The author is not a journalist, and this is an objective and well written book. Recommended.

Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia — I. B. Tauris, 2000. — ISBN 1860644171
Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia — London, Yale University Press, 2001. — 279 p., ISBN 0300089023
It is the same book. Yellow journalism and gossip-mongering. Naturally, the most popular book on the Taliban at Amazon.com. Do not waste your money on it.

Mark Duffield, Patricia Gossman, Nicholas Leader, Review of the Strategic Framework for Afghanistan — Islamabad, AREU, 2001 (internet)
I first thought the only relation this document had to Afghanistan was that its authors were heavily stoned on Afghan hashish in the process of writing. This is an insider report written by UN/NGO people for UN/NGO people right before the fall of the Taliban. It discusses why nothing works with humanitarian help in Afghanistan. But in the process we learn how it works. How the UN used humanitarian aid for political blackmail of the Taliban, how the UN strong armed NGOs, how the UN spied on the Taliban and NGOs, how the Taliban spied on the UN and NGOs, and how NGOs got it in the ass from just about anybody.

Books on Islam

Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali, Muhammad Muhsin Khan. Interpretation of the meanings of the Noble Qur'an in the English Language. A summarized version of At-Tabari, Al-Qurtubi and Ibn Kathir with comments from Sahih Al-Bukhari — Riyadh: DARUSSALAM Publishers and Distributors, 1996. — 1311 p., ISBN 996074079X
It is useful to get familiar with Koran, especially through an edition that has meaningful comments accompanying the main text. This edition is the only one in English I could find, but naturally there are many more available.

The Summary of Sahih Boukhary, Volumes 1&2 — Beirut: Dar El Fikr, 1998. — 596 p., 544 p.
In the end of the 9th century a certain Muhammed Bin Ismail Al-Boukhari has collected and classified all available eyewitness accounts of Muhammed. This collection is called Hadith and is the second most important book after Koran in Islam. The stories are quite interesting. This particular edition has been bought in Damascus, in a bookstore across the road of Baramke bus station. Many more editions are available, naturally.

Jonathan Bloom, Sheila Blair, Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power — London: Yale University Press, 2002. — 268 p., ISBN 0300094221 (Amazon)
Unbiased, well written, easy to read, covers the main ideas and early history of Islam. Recommended.

Conclusion: References