Cradled by the Fann mountains, the seven interconnected lakes that compose Tajikistan’s Haft-Kul were utterly breathtaking.
After weaving our way alongside a waterfall, we reached the first lake: Nezihgon, named for its distinctive eyelash shape. The aquamarine lake gleamed in the afternoon sun, further heightened by the green of surrounding trees reflecting on its clear surface. Being the lowest in elevation of the seven lakes, it is simultaneously the warmest. In wonder, I watched the blue seem to carve its way through the mountains that encompassed it.
Soya: the second lake was a striking turquoise, feeding Nezihgon from a gushing stream. The water seemed to pulse like a beating heart beneath the sunlight, one of seven organs pumping water down the mountainous terrain.
A startlingly deep blue in comparison to its sisters, the third lake, Gushor, was perched right above. It glimmered gently, cocooned by rugged slopes scattered with grasses and wildflowers.
From Nofin, Khurdak, to Marguzor, we wove our way higher, finally catching sight of the seventh lake: Khazorchashma. This glacier lake feeds the cascade of water that snakes its way through the mountainside and pools in the lakes below. In Tajik, “Khazor” (ҳазор) means thousand, and “Chashma” (чашма) means spring. Reflected in the name, water surfaces from the earth and trickles from the snowmelt to feed Khazorchashma. Like a thousand hidden veins nourishing the land, I could feel the ground beneath me pulsing, as if with each exhale the mountains breathed life into the lake.
As I slowly waded in, submerging my ankles and then my knees, I felt the frigid water all the way to my bones. I dove in once the water reached my waist, the cold stealing the breath from my lungs. From beneath my eyelids there was only a blinding blue, and the thrum of my heart was all I could hear under the hush of the water. Settling into the stillness, the refracted light delicately pricked my skin beneath the surface.
When I resurfaced, I became cognizant of the cold, but the sensation quickly numbed as I took in the open sky and stone of the surrounding mountains. Jagged peaks rose from lake, haloed by the clear sky that cast a pale blue on the water’s surface. I was mesmerized by the silent harmony that existed here. From Khazorchashma to Nezihgon, the lakes threaded through the mountains, individual yet interconnected.
In Haft-Kul, I glimpsed something enduring: the quiet interdependence that shapes us. Each lake in this living system was sustaining and being sustained by the others. Connection isn’t always visible — it can be still and deeply rooted, like glacial water threading through rock. This unexplainable interconnectedness reminds me that we often arrive at places through paths we couldn’t have mapped.
The coalescence of my experiences has inexplicably led me to this moment and to seven lakes nestled in the Fann mountains. These hidden currents are like the water flowing through the mountains of Haft-Kul, guiding us forward as we traced our way along the descent.
by Shireen Aryana
Opportunity Scholarship Recipient
Dan E. Davidson Fellowship Recipient
Eurasian Regional Language Program (ERLP)
Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Summer 2025