The Museums of Kabul

On Thursday, since we had the day off, Lisa and I decided to take a trip to see the great museums of the city. It turned out to be a wet, cold, snowy day, but despite the weather, we had a nice time.

The first stop on our tour was the rebuilt National Museum of Afghanistan.

I opted not to pay the extra camera fee to take pictures inside the building (but you can click here to see some of what all used to be on display).

The museum was almost completely destroyed during a bombing in 1993, and then the Taliban went in and hacked the remaining things to bits.

However, in the last year, especially, a lot of work has been done. The building has been rebuilt, and statues have been pieced back together. There were actually some photos of the reconstruction work on display, and I was amazed to see pictures of entire statues crumbled into tiny pieces... but then those same pieces were put back together and are back on display.

Currently, there is a nice exhibit titled: Tashqurghan: An Afghan Urban Heritage Lost? There a number of beautifully enlarged photographs (postcards of these are also on sale) that were taken between 1971 and 1978. There is also a room filled with decorative bedposts and ancestor carvings from Nuristan. I especially enjoyed seeing the reconstructed Buddha statues, which are further evidence of the pre-Islamic heritage of the nation.

Outside the museum, an old king's locomotive is on display. We asked about where the train used to go, but didn't find out much about it. (But you can click on the link and read all the train history that you desire!)

After hearing about all the destruction, it was heartening to see that with the help of the international community, some history has been preserved. I imagine that as more time goes on, the museum will continue to have more exhibits that everyone can learn from and enjoy.

The next stop on our tour was the OMAR (Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation) museum. The man at the gate said they were closed, but they were nice enough to let us in anyway.

Now, considering I have a brother and nephews, I did pay the fee/donation and took lots of photos at this one.

I had been wanting to visit OMAR for some time, and had made several previous attempts. Honestly, however, where I left the National Museum feeling sad about the past but hopeful for the future, OMAR just left me sad.

The yard outside is full of planes, helicopters, rocket launchers and shells. The room inside is full of grenades, land mines, more rocket launchers, shells, unexploded ordnance (UXO), pictures of landmine victims (young boys and old men with missing limbs), and educational posters.

We were told that everything is the building had been found by OMAR. The range of where the items originated from was astounding - China, Iran, Italy, the US and UK, Pakistan, the list went on and on... and all of it was found within the borders of Afghanistan.

The most fascinating thing (and probably the thing that will remain in my memory the longest) was the Anti-Tank IED (Improvised Explosive Device) made out of a pressure cooker. When it comes to things men (the Mujahideen to be precise) have made to kill others, I think taking a pot normally used by women to make dinner has got to be one of the most ingenious ideas. Did a husband come home one day, eat his Kabuli Palau, and think, "hmm... that would really work."? Or as a dutiful wife was making dinner for her husband (who possibly never showed up), did she have the thought? Then, fed up, did she take her pressure cooker down to the local rebel hideout and donate it to the cause? Or was her house bombed out, and while digging through the rubble, a young man found it? I guess I'll never know the answers... just that somehow that pot went from cooking a meal to serving up death.

Although I do think that in a country like this, the OMAR museum is serving a valuable function of education, and I now have about 35 pictures of the place, I'm getting depressed writing about it, so I'm gonna wrap up this post.

So then, after signing the guestbook and chatting with the guy who showed us around, our tour was over.

We headed off to cheerier locations... and had coffee and lunch at one of our favorite places... and contemplated happier things.

... like the V-day dinner that evening at a colleague's house.