National Museum of Tajikistan

The National Museum opened in its present building in 2013 and covers the country's archaeology, history, ethnography and art across several floors. Its outstanding object is the Buddha in Nirvana, a clay reclining figure about thirteen metres long excavated at the Ajina-Teppa monastery in the 1960s, broken into dozens of pieces and reassembled over decades; it is among the largest such figures in Central Asia. Sogdian material from Penjikent fills another gallery, and the building covers about 24,000 square metres, over 15,000 of them exhibition halls. The building itself is part of the rebuilding of central Dushanbe, and the collections were moved into it from the older and much smaller museum that had held them since the Soviet period.

The main sights

• The Buddha in Nirvana - a thirteen-metre clay reclining figure from Ajina-Teppa.
• The Sogdian rooms - wall paintings and finds from ancient Penjikent.
• The archaeology floors - material from Sarazm, Takht-i Sangin and the Khuttal sites.
• The ethnography galleries - textiles, jewellery and domestic material.

When to go

Year round; it is indoors and air conditioned. It closes on Mondays. Mornings are quietest.

Things to know

Labelling is largely in Tajik and Russian with limited English. Photography usually carries an extra charge. Some galleries close without notice.

Nearby

Rudaki Avenue is nearby, and Kohi Navruz is west.

Key facts