The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has endorsed a decision declaring Dushanbe, the capital and largest city of Tajikistan, as the CIS Cultural Capital for 2021, according to the CIS Executive Committee
According to the CIS Executive Committee’s website, Dushanbe now has 37 hotels, 57 restaurants, 4 national tea houses, 32 entertaining centers, 25 markets and 91 shopping centers, 26 souvenir shops, 17 parks, 1 zoo, 5 reservoirs for recreation, 4 culture palaces, 7 theaters, 10 museums, 16 libraries, 306 medical facilities that serve hundreds of locals and foreigners a day.
The city has 109 travel agencies. The official tourist website of Dushanbe www.dushanbe-travel.tj offers the electronic map of tourist destinations and attraction spots.
In 2020, the cultural capital of the CIS countries was Kazakhstan's Shymkent.
Besides, the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) in October 2019 selected Dushanbe as ECO Tourism Capital for the years 2020-2021.
A decision on this subject was adopted at the 3rd ECO Ministerial Meeting on Tourism that took place in the Tajik northern city of Khujand on October 3-4, 2019. The meeting was proceeded by the 5th High Level Experts Group (HLEG) on Tourism. The meetings were hosted by the Tourism Development Committee under the Government of Tajikistan. Delegations from Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan (host), Turkey and Uzbekistan as well as the delegation of ECO Secretariat attended the meetings.
