Marlen Elders completed her MA in Social and Cultural Anthropology with a thesis on exploring aesthetics and sensory perception, experimenting with creative research methods including audio-visual techniques. In Summer 2017 she co-curated an exhibition on Munich’s environmental (hi)stories at the Rachel Carson Center (see Ecopolis München). Since 2016 she is part of the research project Remoteness & Connectivity: Highland Asia in the World, currently working on the highland flotsam exhibition and her first documentary film Murghab.

When I first visited Murghab in August 2017, it was warm, dusty and busy. The bumpy Pamir Highway was bustling with people and goods, the guesthouses were crowded and Murghab’s only hotel was a vivid meeting point for cyclists, bikers and adventurous backpackers staying for a few days before moving on towards Osh, Dushanbe or the Wakhan Corridor. The tourism sector is one of the rare economic opportunities in this area. Over the last few years, many Murghabi invested in guesthouses and SUVs, offering tours to Kyrgyz summer pastures and hot springs. In winter, tourism grinds to a halt. The prospect of minua 40°C and icy roads scare most tourists away.

Murghab residents, however, have to cope with these harsh conditions. I was stunned to see how much effort it actually takes to keep the basic infrastructure running. For heating, cooking or simply making tea, you need to start a fire. Water is carried form the well several times a day, clothes are washed by hand and charging phones requires a generator or solar panels. My initial romantic enchantment for this post-industrial world soon gave way to a feeling of deep respect for the people living in Murghab.

For recording sound, however, the absence of the typical background noise of urban life was an advantage. It allowed for pure and intense aural textures that helped to create an immersive soundscape of Murghab. In the beginning, I was somewhat worried about the fact that I would have to record conversations I was not able to understand. In retrospect, however, I think it allowed me to dive into unfolding scenes even more affectively, and helped to capture a glimpse of the very special atmosphere of Murghab.

Daler Kaziev completed his BA at American University of Central Asia, Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) in 2017. Majoring in the field of Environmental Sustainability and minoring in Anthropology, his BA thesis was about the Community Resilience and Commodification of Natural Resources in the Eastern Pamirs of Tajikistan. Since 2015, Daler has been collaborating with the team of the project Remoteness & Connectivity: Highland Asia in the World. This collaboration resulted in the creation of his first documentary film Murghab. Currently, he is an MS candidate in the Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University.

Growing up in Murghab after the end of the Soviet Union, I learnt that the collectors of teresken shrubs are among the most important people in the town. During Soviet times, the houses of Murghab were heated with coal imported from the Donbass region of Ukraine; the Ak-Suu, a Soviet-built hydropower station, and supplementary diesel generators provided electricity. With the collapse, all these supplies stopped. The lack of fuel, coal, and electricity forced people to collect dwarf shrubs – the only feasible woody plants growing in the high-altitude valleys of the Pamirs. Conservationists perceived the intensive removal of shrubs from the pasture lands as an ecological crisis in the making, leading to land degradation, desertification, and soil erosion. Studies predicted disaster. However, after almost three decades of continuous collection, this disaster has not come to pass.

One of the reasons for this are the local harvesting strategies of shrub collectors. Their informal social organisation has played a crucial role in balancing land stewardship with the basic energy needs of Murghab town. However, they were not given credit for this. NGOs and state representatives concerned with conservation tend to see the teresken collectors as the problem rather than a solution. The collectors are pushed to the edge of legality rather than empowered. Presently, for example, snow leopard conservation has become a big issue in the region; yet, shrub collectors have not been involved in any snow leopard conservation project. While shrubs are food source for wild sheep, goats, and marmots upon which the survival of snow leopards depends, the shrub collectors remain at the margins of development and conservation efforts. With this film, I hope to make them visible and contribute to capacity building among them. I firmly believe that any practical solution to conservation or any form of community-engaged development can only be found from within.

In 2015, while finishing my anthropology degree at the American Universality of Central Asia in Bishkek, I met Martin and became part of the Highland Asia research group. I presented my findings in Munich and joined the project team on trips to Nepal and China. The idea for the film Murghab came out of these conversations. While studying in Bishkek, I had some training in visual anthropology and started working on several short films. Murghab is my first feature-length documentary.