Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic along a waterway. After Stalin's death in March 1953, Stalinabad, was renamed to "Dushanbe" on 10 November 1961 as part of the De-Stalinization program. In February 1990, tensions between the Tajiks and Armenians squared off in the republic's capital Dushanbe. 26 people died and 565 more were injured and the Soviet troops put down the riots. Both Yaqub Salimov, the Interior Minister and the youth activists were convicted for the participation in the riots. Later on 24 August 1990, Tajik SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws. By 1991, Tajikistan participated in a referendum in March as part of the
Corruption in Tajikistan the country was high and unlikely to change soon; about half thought that most officials take bribes; and about half viewed corruption negatively. Transparency International's 2017 Corruption Perception Index ranks the country 161st place out of 180 countries Tajikistan gained independence in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the ensuing civil war, waged from 1992 to 1997, left the people largely apathetic and passive in the face of government authority. Landlocked and poor in natural resources, Tajikistan remains the poorest and least developed of the former Soviet republics, with half of the inhabitants living on less than 2 USD