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Why is the long hair competition
is Tajik television's most watched annual show?
And why does the Tajik government produce documentaries about kamikaze children?
Next up: Television from Tajikistan.
Television from around the world
[Television from Tajikistan]
If you channel surf Tajik television,
you end up seeing women with long hair.
Hair that's really long.
It's a national competition called The Beauty of Locks.
It's shown on all the country's TV channels.
This celebration of beauty and feminine hair
in a Muslim country seems surprising.
There are so many beautiful women in Tajikistan.
In recent years, young women have begun cutting their hair.
I feel sad when someone cuts off their long hair.
A women with beautiful eyes, beautiful eyebrows,
and long hair, that's also our culture.
Stay with us, you won't regret it.
The competition is the brainchild of President Emomalii Rahmon,
who you can see here,
hailed by the public coming from all parts of the country,
and represented by different traditional costumes.
Thank you for this enlightening independence.
Thank you for these honorable and dignified sons.
Who brought forth in our hearts the rebirth
the traditions of our ancestors.
This bouquet is for all the artists
from the president of the Republic of Tajikistan.
His honorable Excellency, Emomalii Rahmon.
His Majesty likes everything that's beautiful.
That's why he wants other countries and other people
to know about our magnificent traditions.
That's why he created this important event.
There's one person who knows something about the president's ideas.
His name is Ibrahim Ousmonov.
He was his media consultant.
Today he manages the journalism department
at Dushanbe University.
The Tajiks prefer TV as their source of information.
Sometimes they forget things that happen.
But they never forget what they see on TV.
Listen to what the wisemen, masters, and bosses say.
It's the custom of the people of Central Asia.
What the wiseman says is right.
What the boss says is right.
And what the TV says is right.
Tajikistan is a small mountainous country of seven million people.
It's a former republic of the USSR
and when the USSR fell in 1991, Tajikistan became an independent nation
stuck between Afghanistan, China, and Russia.
The dominant language is Tajik.
A Persian language similar to that spoken in Iran and Afghanistan.
It's spoken along with the Russian language,
as a result of being under Soviet rule.
Other Russian influences include the first TV channel created in 1959.
The channel still exists.
Father of a enriching audiovisual environment,
that includes four other channels.
You can see the president's daughter on the first channel
giving the news in English.
Little Zarrina is 16 years old.
She's studying in London, and works for daddy's TV channel.
The president's influence on the TV landscape is palpable.
Take for example Safina, the channel for young people.
Safina was created five years ago in 2005.
His Majesty, the President Emomalii Rahmon
was directly involved in creating the channel.
Another example is Bakhoriston, a channel for kids.
Our president took the decision to create our channel.
Mr. President Emomalii Rahmon.
And here's the historic moment...
There's also a new channel called Jahonnamo.
Jahonnamo was created from a directive from the president.
The Honorable Emomalii Rahmon.
But there's also a private TV channel created in 2007
SMT, or Independent Television of Tajikistan.
There's no president to control the station and sometimes no image either.
We've had a problem for awhile.
The Russian channel, ORT, uses the same channel as us.
This Russian channel doesn't have permission to use the same cables.
This is because of a Russian military base located on Tajikistan territory.
They intercept our channel to diffuse this illegal Russian channel.
Without authorization of the Tajikistan government,
and without permission from the appropriate people.
And when the images aren't fuzzy,
you can hear things about the president that you don't hear on state-run channels.
Such as the state of the catastrophic employment situation in the country.
I only have one solution:
leave and go work in Russia.
I'm forced to leave my country.
I haven't received any assistance.
I raised my three children.
I can't find any decent work. I want to leave.
One million Tajiks left to work in Russia.
The country lacks raw materials.
There's neither gas nor oil,
On TV, you'll hear about a new source of energy.
Dear fellow citizens,
when you pay your electricity bill,
you're contributing to our country's economy.
If each household used money-saving lamps,
they will see it in their budget.
In addition, you'll become a member of the country's energetic system.
To help Tajikistan's energy system,
Tajik television is playing its part.
State-run television broadcasts a documentary
focusing on Tajikistan's sole source of energy:
hydraulic energy.
The energy is created by two large dams in the mountains.
The most important one is Rogun Dam.
It will be the tallest dam in the world.
It's the president's personal project,
who is closely following the project's progression.
These presidential visits are closely filmed by state-run television.
The Rogun Dam will free the Tajiks from depending on other countries.
For our people, for our country, it's an important site.
But the TV channels talked about it so much
that it gave the impression there was nothing else but Rogun.
People watch what's shown on television.
And they also see what's going on around them.
They compare notes and
conclude that what they see on TV is not the truth.
There was so much hype in the media
that people don't want to hear about it anymore.
To finance the construction of Rogun Dam,
the Tajik government forced people to buy shares.
Each family had to buy a share valued at $690.
A huge expense when the average monthly salary is $45.
Give everything that we have
so that Rogun can be built.
Thanks to the generosity of the people
We're an honorable people
born of a great culture.
Rogun will be built
thanks to the wealth of the people.
When Rogun will be built
our country will flourish.
The names of those who will have contributed
will remain in History.
The words of this song, The Call,
is none other than the director of state-run TV.
Tajikistan has wealth that would make its people proud.
It's the beauty of its mountainous and wild landscapes.
Television takes advantage of this beauty by
showing continuous interludes.
Sometimes Tajik TV fills up airtime with things that don't matter.
Every 15-20 minutes, for about 1-1.5 minutes,
waterfalls, landscapes, birds.
If added up, all these interludes run 15 minutes per day.
For a channel with an 18-hour airtime, it's a lot.
It's lost time.
The viewer doesn't enjoy it.
It bores him to the point that he begins to hate nature.
As pretty as TV can make it,
Tajik TV postcards annoy viewers
such as the Marmodov family.
The mother is a professor at the university.
The father is a cabinetmaker.
Their two children are students.
Each of them have a critical opinion of TV.
As an artist, I can say that Tajik TV is struggling.
To be honest, we don't really watch it.
There really aren't any shows for young people.
The TV channels often interrupt movies to broadcast commercials.
Yet, during the commercials, the movie is still playing.
For example, we'll be watching a movie,
then an advertisement comes up,
and after the ad, we realize it's the end of the movie.
Even if the TV schedule is often published in newspapers,
it doesn't always correspond to what's shown on TV.
That's the problem.
If not, maybe we would be interested in watching state-run TV.
Most people end up watching Russian TV.
It's closer to our world perception and our values.
But there's one show that the family likes to watch.
It's a cooking show called 'Little Pigs'.
Meaning 'concon' in Tajik.
It's hosted by the country's longest-serving presenter.
Each ingredient must be cut in its own way.
For example, vegetables...
Today, we're cutting the meat like this.
We can watch 'Little Pigs' when we have free time.
How to explain...
It's for housewives.
To learn how to cook.
You can watch it once or twice.
But for someone with other interests, it's not enough.
The secret behind the show's success is the hostess.
She gets close to people by filming in their homes.
Explain what you're doing.
Stop! Do this.
Ah, it's during these moments that we urgently want to hear about Rogun Dam.
Maybe it's the fuse.
Where's the fuse?
The Boboron Piroff family lives in a popular neighborhood in Dushanbe.
He's a retired worker.
According to tradition, all the children and grandchildren
live under the same roof and watch the same television.
We all watch it.
The first channel, movies that talk about family stories.
What are you watching?
He has ears like this and his wife does too.
His name is Shrek and his wife is named Fiona.
The donkey goes to his house and asks, 'where can I sleep?'
And Shrek says, 'go away!'.
We'll get along!
Where can I sleep?
Go away!
I'm leaving...
Our channel is oriented towards culture and leisure.
It's mostly an entertainment channel.
It doesn't always satisfy the viewers.
We don't show reality.
Our channel is meant more to reassure people.
It tries to comfort them.
It tries to quiet their daily suffering.
If the Tajik could watch entertaining TV from around the world,
it's because of the channel's dubbing department.
The dubbing and film studio of state-run Safina
is the channel's most recent department.
It was created after the Tajik language law
made Tajik the only language of the country.
We take Russian films, translate and dub them in Tajik.
No, it's good.
Lower the Russian so I can hear Tajik.
We don't yell like that.
And how do they manage to procure Hollywood films to Tajik?
I can't say much on this.
The government gives us movies and asks us to dub them.
Our managers often go to international film festivals
and they come back with DVDs.
I don't know about the others.
They tell us to do it and we do it.
Now, I am your master.
As a result, the programming is very eclectic.
It goes from fantasy to Bollywood.
We watch Indian and Tajik movies.
Recently, we watched all episodes of the series, 'Searching for Father'.
It talks about everyday life.
The children like it.
'Searching for Father' is one of Tajikistan's first major series.
It's the story of a boy who goes looking for his father.
The father left his family for a younger woman.
The boy's mother can't handle the separation.
In the meantime, the father becomes an alcoholic.
But this doesn't stop the boy from dreaming of his return.
Get up father, get up.
Did you drink ***?
Lay down dad.
It shows us how people live.
So that we take an example from them.
It shows us how difficult it is to raise children.
It's a specialty of Tajik TV.
It tries to help Tajiks find solutions to their daily problems.
Each channel has a self-help show.
On the first channel, it's called 'The Philosopher's Lessons'.
I'm your father!
It consists of a fictional moral or ethical family story
followed by advice from a writer.
Leave, sir.
Life must be lived in this way,
that even after death, we still live.
On Safina, there's a kid's show called 'The Crossroads'.
Fictional stories here as well.
Today's theme: why gossip is wrong.
Good thing you didn't go to her reception.
I did a good thing!
How shameful! I didn't know where to go.
If you had seen what she served!
The candy was sticky and gross.
The samoussas was cold and falling apart.
She was also being fake.
Hello, welcome.
This thorny societal question is discussed by lawyers and psychologists.
They want to talk to their neighbors.
We tell their husbands:
"Take time to listen to your wives".
That's what you need to do.
She was gossiping.
She asked God to forgive her.
In the sacred Koran, in Islam,
gossip is seen as a sin.
Goodbye and see you later.
In Dushanbe, two worlds collide: the secular and the religious.
Veiled women are a recent phenomenon.
The Tajik woman has two faces on TV.
There's this one.
And there's this one.
But it's another movie about extremist Islam
that created a stir on Tajik TV.
A documentary called 'The Lost Ones'.
The film was ordered by the government
tells the fate of Tajik children
who find themselves recruited by Afghan and Pakistani Koranic schools.
Far from their homeland,
they become toys in the hands of
certain Islamist politicians.
These men make the children join
radical groups and terrorists.
We have to execute our superior's orders.
We don't know
where we're going to explode,
who we would kill and for what reason.
When the recruiters go see the parents
they tell them that their children will go to Arab countries.
And we'll turn him into a scholar.
He'll get a good education.
He'll learn all about Islam.
He'll become a mullah.
These families think it's an honor.
'My child will study in an Arab country all expenses paid'.
Why not?
It doesn't even cross their mind their children will be terrorists.
And that tomorrow they'll be sent to fight their own people.
That's how Tajik TV uses images filmed from the Taliban
to turn it against them
and fight against the spread of radical Islam.
Look at this young man's face.
He's trying to show that he's happy.
But in reality, he doesn't want to die.
But he can't go back.
To this end, they don't hesitate to show disturbing images.
The impact of these images broadcasted on all the channels
hit a nerve in the country.
Dear viewers,
the point of this film
is to not just to show a shocking cruelty.
but to reveal
the immoral and morbid intentions of terrorist groups and movements.
When we broadcast this film,
people could see what was happening with their own eyes.
We say that the media is the fourth most powerful institution.
And it's true.
The media shows what's really happening.
Also, the president shared his opinion.
All of this strengthens the people's confidence in the president,
his government and his country.
I think people will get their children back.
And they will no longer make this mistake.
And it works.
On TV, the country congratulates itself on returning Tajik children
who were lost in Koranic schools in the Muslim world.
In Tajikistan, the media is an efficient weapon of propaganda
within the hands of an omnipresent president
in which his image closes every channel.
Because of you, we'll forever live in eternity.
We are loved throughout the world.
Long live my country!
My free Tajikistan!
It's midnight in Dushanbe, time to go to bed!