[ariel]

Correct: P’chak, a local variant of Turkish Bichaq
A virtually identical knife from Tajikistan is a Kord, a local variant of Persian Kard. Both words have the same meaning and translation: knife:-)

Tajiks speak Dari, a dialect of Farsi, while Uzbeks are Turks. Despite living in close proximity, these are two different people. Even now, their diets are subtly different: Uzbeks eat horse meat and a lot of dairy products, reflecting their nomadic past.


Tajiks were the original inhabitants, settled farmers, but Uzbeks were latecoming nomadic “mongols”. Tajiks were squeezed out of their lands into the mountainous areas. The originally Tajik towns, such as Bukhara and Samarkand became centers of Uzbek Khanates, and after the 1917 Russian Revolution Tajikistan became only an Autonomous Republic within the full-blown Soviet Socialist Uzbek Republic.
Tajiks were in effect subjugated, but were significantly more acculturated. In fact, however the majority of Bukhara ( Uzbek town) inhabitants were ethnic Tajiks. Ethnic Uzbeks in significant proportion led nomadic way of life.
Till now Uzbekistan is relatively rich, whereas Tajikistan is dirt poor.

Even in my youth ( still in the USSR), there was a saying that the surest way of being knifed ( sorry: Kord-ed:-) by a Tajik is to call him an Uzbek.

Their weapons may be called slightly different, but are in effect identical, differing not in the ethnic sense, but in the manufacturing locality one.
When we are talking about “Bukharan” weapons, we inadvertently mix in those made in the former Khanates of Kokand, Khiva, Samarkand etc.

Regretfully, Russian occupation of Central-Asian Khanates, as well as their repression of independence movements after the revolution led to mass emigration of both ethnicities to Afghanistan and Iran and virtually total confiscation of weapons from the remaining people.

Currently, one has much better chance to find old Central-Asian weapons outside the former USSR.

A whole plast of history was lost an will never be researched.

Alex, while you are there, can you visit local museums and talk to the curators? Maybe, some snippets of old history are still preserved. Every scrap will be priceless.

Let us know what have you found, including local names for their daggers and sabers as well as for their guardless sabers that we out of sheer ignorance call “ Bukharan sabers”, “pseudoshashkas” and such