The Museum And The Palace

On Saturday, after we were done at the ANA Staff College, Lauryn and I picked up a couple interpreters and went to the National Museum of Afghanistan. She was interviewing the curator. I took the time to explore the place.

As I mentioned earlier, the fact that the museum exists at all is a small miracle. It was mercilessly pillaged and destroyed in the 1990s, sometimes by various muj groups during the civil war, sometimes by the Taliban.

Here’s the road outside the museum. Not exactly in pristine shape.

The museum is housed in a stately grey building. There are a few plaques outside.

The museum was still being painted while I was there. But for the most part, it looked on par with any other museum in the world.

Here is a sample of some of the exhibits. They are centuries old; a few go back more than a thousand years.

One hall in particular had an astounding display of ancient statues from Nuristan province. Fun fact: Nuristan did not convert to Islam until the 1890s. It was the last place in Afghanistan to do so. Until then it was called Kafirstan, or “Land of the Unbelievers”. Nuristan means “Land of the Enlightened.”

The English on the signs in the museum was often a great source of amusement.

Here are some of the museum staff, no doubt discussing Very Important Things.

After wondering around inside for a while, I explored the outside yard of the museum. The most interesting piece was this, the rusted-out body of a steam engine. It’s from the 1920s when Amanullah, the leader of Afghanistan from 1919 to 1929, worked very hard to modernize the country.

Amanullah did all kinds of great things, including bringing in a constitution that was impressively progressive for its time, recognizing women’s rights and political freedom. He also tried to kickstart a national railway network as Afghanistan had nothing in this regard (and still doesn’t today.)

However, Amanullah’s policies were attacked viciously by various conservative factions in Afghanistan, and eventually he was forced into exile in Europe. All that’s left of his grand train visions is sitting on the lawn of the National Museum.

It was at this point that my eye was drawn across the road.

That gigantic hulk of a building is the remnant of another of Amanullah’s projects, the Darul Aman Palace. It was meant to be the centre of a new capital city that would be connected to Kabul by the first railway. Unfortunately, this never came to pass.

As with so many of Kabul’s beautiful buildings, the Darul Aman Palace was heavily shelled during the wars of the 1990s. Apparently the Americans inhabited it for a while after 2001, but today it sits eerily up on the hill, unoccupied and unguarded.

Well, I had to check this out for myself. When are you going to get a chance to just explore a century-old palace with no security or anything keeping you from entering it? This is one of those “only in Afghanistan” things. So I walked off toward it.

By myself.

As I walked up the hill, I must say…a few chills went down my spine. This destroyed palace was very creepy.

As I got close, a layer of coiled barbed wire surrounded the building. I eventually found a tree that allowed me to cross over it. This area used to be off-limits because of landmines, but it’s since been cleared. Or so I was told.

You can see three things when you look around from the hill that the Darul Aman Palace sits on.

There is a sprawling American military base off to one side. You can see the approach here, with the signature red-and-white concrete barriers preventing suicide bombers from taking a run at the gates.

And of course, with an American base comes an American security blimp.

On the hill beside the base was another creepy old abandoned building. This is the house that Amanullah built for his wife, Queen Soraya.

And finally, there was a gigantic construction project. I don’t know what this building is supposed to be, but it was massive. It must be some kind of government building going up.

Suddenly I realized that the palace was occupied after all. A small face was peering out the window at me.

I waved at him, and he waved back. Then I pointed to my camera to ask if I could take a picture. He waved again.

Then he started shouting “one dollar, one dollar.” Which isn’t strange for Afghanistan; all the street kids are constantly asking for money.

But this is where things started to get disturbing.

As I walked toward the back of the palace, I saw another young boy. He was using the corner of the building as a toilet. I turned away to give him his privacy, as he didn’t expect someone to come walking around the building.

After he ran off, I kept walking around the side of the palace. Suddenly there were about five kids there, all staring at me. “Salaam, salaam” I said to them, which basically means “Hello.” They all responded with “Salaam”, and were clearly amazed to see a foreigner with a camera.

As I kept walking around the back of the palace, I came to a courtyard. And then my heart sank.

The courtyard was filled with children. It absolutely reeked of urine and other odours. There were two large UNICEF tents set up that looked very old.

I was suddenly very uncomfortable, and wanted to leave. I did take one picture of the courtyard but I tried not to take any of the children, as it just felt like exploitation. It felt wrong for me to be there.

I turned around and quickly walked back around the palace. I never saw a single adult anywhere. Only children. An Afghan told me later that the palace had been taken over by Kuchis, a traditionally nomadic people.

Things got even stranger.

As I walked back around the palace, there was now a dog sitting there that I was sure hadn’t been there before. The dog was clearly feral, and was looking at me with unfriendly dark eyes.

As I kept walking, the dog got up behind me and started barking and trotting toward me. This really freaked me out, as he could be rabid for all I knew. I walked quickly, but didn’t run. The dog stayed behind, and I turned around and took this picture.

And then things got even more weird. Two kids were now sitting on the front steps of the palace. As I walked past them, they started shouting at me in Dari. I ignored them, and kept walking.

They threw a couple rocks toward me. Not to try and hit me, but just nearby to get me to turn around. Then they ran down the stairs and started walking behind me, kicking the ground. This seemed distinctly hostile.

So I turned around to face them. The first boy was maybe 10 years old. One of his eyes looked like it had some kind of disease around it. I stuck out my hand and said firmly: “Salaam alaikum.”

He cocked his head at me. After a moment he replied: “Alaikum assalam,” and shook my hand. He now seemed very unsure of himself. I walked past him and the other boy, and stepped back over the tree and through the barbed wire. I quickly made my way down the hill. The boys again started shouting in Dari, but I have no clue what they were saying.

At the bottom of the hill, I took a few more pictures of the palace.

I walked back toward the museum, pulled out a book, and sat down to read until Lauryn was done with her interview. As I was sitting there, a group of policemen walked by me. One of them stopped and turned towards me. He said in a loud voice: “Thank you.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just smiled. Then they walked away.

What a strange day this was.