Regional Museum

The Pamir Highway


This fascinating Soviet-style old-school museum exhibits crampons and the first Russian piano to arrive in Badakhshan (10 Russian soldiers spent two months carrying it over the mountains from Osh in 1913) along with portraits of Stalin and the basket of a collective farm's star potato-picker. The dilapidated collection is in need of a good dust but that rather adds to the charm.

The museum is set well back from the road in a neoclassical building with pillars. It sits almost by the Central Park but is numbered as part of Lenin. It's referred to locally as the old theatre building; the collection is on the second floor.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby The Pamir Highway attractions

1. Central Park

0.11 MILES

It’s hard to believe that Khorog’s Central Park was dug up to grow crops during the famine of the 1990s. It has since been renovated by the Aga Khan Trust…

3. Khorog Bazaar

0.5 MILES

Most active in the mornings, in common with most regional bazaars, this teeming market by the river overflows into stalls shaded by colourful umbrellas…

4. Saturday Market

1.6 MILES

Some 5km west of Khorog, a bridge linking Afghanistan with Tajikistan crosses the river at the point where the Gunt merges with the Pyanj. Every Saturday…

5. First Truck Monument

2.47 MILES

A 1928 truck on a plinth just below the hydroelectric dam at the eastern end of Lenin, commemorates the opening of the Pamir Hwy to Osh after over 20…

6. Pamir Botanical Gardens

3.03 MILES

At the entrance to the Shokh Dara Valley, 5km east of town, this arboretum encompasses a couple of hundred hectares of parkland and is claimed to be the…

7. Ancient Shrine

9.36 MILES

Set within a traditional walled enclosure and now protected within an octagonal cover added in the 1990s, this is one of several authentic ancient Ismaili…

8. Red Fort

21.46 MILES

The minimal ruins of this old 'red fort' has lent its name to the valley's main town. The town has a small bazaar and a fine location at the base of a…