Dushanbe Dushanbe Dushanbe (, ) is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. Dushanbe means "Monday" in the Tajik language. It was named this way because it grew from a village that originally had a popular market on Mondays. , Dushanbe had a population of 802,700. Historically a small village, Dushanbe was made the capital of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe (, "Dyushambe"), and from 1929 to 1961 as Stalinabad (, "Stalinobod)" which was named after Joseph Stalin. Situated at the confluence of two rivers, Varzob and Kofarnihon,
Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic created at the same time within the predominantly Turkic Uzbek SSR as an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik ASSR) – one rank below a Soviet Socialist Republic in USSR geopolitical hierarchy. The new autonomous republic included what had been eastern Bukhara and had a population of about 740,000, out of a total population of nearly 5 million in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic as a whole. Its capital was established in Dyushambe, which had been a village of 3,000 in 1920. In December 1929, Tajik ASSR was detached from the Uzbek SSR and given full status as a Soviet Socialist