Travel Guide Siponj

This village, located 50 km from Rushan, is sometimes also called Bartang. Often attacked by the inhabitants of the Iazgulum Valley, Vantch or the Afghans, the villagers used to retreat into the cave caves called mobeguim bawone, excavated on the side of the mountain behind the village. As soon as the armed bands were in sight, the women and children who were the favorite target of bandits were hidden there. The looters were Sunni Muslims, and regarded Ismaelians as bad believers who could be sold as slaves like the infidels.These caves, which also served as a refuge in the event of a flood or heavy rain, are now the reserved domain of the kids climbing it as easily as lizards. Were they, originally, zoroastrian rock tombs, as we encounter in Iran? In any case, it is often seen in the cliffs of the valleys of Bartang and Wakhan. A particularly large cave, known as Malik Khadja Bawone, leads, on the other side of the mountain, to the Iazgulum.Like every village in the Eastern Pamir, Siponj has his oston, also known as the Tajik Mazar. The attitude of Soviet powers changed according to the villages, but often oston was destroyed, mullah and recalcitrant people were killed or sent somewhere in Siberia and any religious ritual was banned. Despite this censorship, elders have preserved certain traditions and have not forgotten the names of oston. The origin of the oston goes back much further than the Muslim conquest, and these few stones with unusual forms that one sees in all the villages should be sacred places of the cult of fire. They also remember the Iranian astodan, the mortuary spaces where the misery was preserved. Siponj's oston, called Bobo Alisho, is at the bottom of the caves. A hundred families live in Siponj.