Afghanistan in the 1950s, 60s and 70s

 

 

Afghanistan in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s   Fractured by internal conflict and foreign intervention for centuries, Afghanistan made several tentative steps toward modernization in the mid-20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, some of the biggest strides were made toward a more liberal and westernized lifestyle, while trying to maintain a respect for more conservative factions. Though officially a neutral nation, Afghanistan was courted and influenced by the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War, accepting Soviet machinery and weapons, and U.S. financial aid. This time was a brief, relatively peaceful era, when modern buildings were constructed in Kabul alongside older traditional mud structures, when burqas became optional for a time, and the country appeared to be on a path toward a more open, prosperous society. Progress was halted in the 1970s, as a series of bloody coups, invasions, and civil wars began, continuing to this day, reversing almost all of the steps toward modernization taken in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Keep in mind, when looking at these images, that the average life expectancy for Afghans born in 1960 was 31, so the vast majority of those pictured have likely passed on since. Picture taken in 1962 at the Faculty of Medicine in Kabul of two Afghan medicine students listening to their professor (at right) as they examine a plaster cast showing a part of a human body. (AFP/Getty Images) 2 Men stroll past roadside vendors as a painted truck makes its way through the busy street in Kabul, Afghanistan, November, 1961.(AP Photo/Henry S. Bradsher) # 3 The modern new (completed 1966) government printing plant in Kabul, on June 9, 1966, which houses Kabul Times. Most of its machinery was furnished by West Germany. (AP Photo) # 4 Architecture in Kabul, Afghanistan, seen on May 28, 1968. (AP Photo/James Martenhoff) # 5 Street scene in Kabul, Afghanistan in November, 1961. (AP Photo/Henry Burroughs) In 1967, Dr. William Podlich took a two-year leave of absence from teaching at Arizona State University and began a stint with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to teach in the Higher Teachers College in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he served as the “Expert on Principles of Education.” His wife Margaret and two daughters, Peg and Jan, came with him. Then teenagers, the Podlich sisters attended high school at the American International School of Kabul, which catered to the children of American and other foreigners living and working in the country. Outside of higher education, Dr. Podlich was a prolific amateur photographer and he documented his family’s experience and daily life in Kabul, rendering frame after frame of a serene, idyllic Afghanistan. Only about a decade before the 1979 Soviet invasion, Dr. Podlich and his family experienced a thriving, modernizing country. These images, taken from 1967-68, show a stark contrast to the war torn scenes associated with Afghanistan today. “When I look at my dad’s photos, I remember Afghanistan as a country with thousands of years of history and culture,” recalls Peg Podlich. “It has been a gut-wrenching experience to watch and hear about the profound suffering, which has occurred in Afghanistan during the battles of war for nearly 40 years. Fierce and proud yet fun loving people have been beaten down by terrible forces.” More of Dr. Podlich’s images are available on a website maintained by Peg’s husband Clayton Esterson. “I have taken on the role as family archivist and when Bill Podlich gave us his extensive slide collection, I immediately recognized the historical significance of the pictures.” says Esterson. “Many Afghans have written comments [on the website] showing their appreciation for the photographs that show what their country was like before 33 years of war. This makes the effort to digitize and restore these photographs worthwhile.” - Patrick Traylor, ptraylor@denverpost.com 1 "I grew up in Tempe, Arizona, and when my dad offered my younger sister, Jan, and me the chance to go with him and our mother to Afghanistan, I was excited about the opportunity. I would spend my senior year in high school in some exotic country, not in ordinary Tempe... Of course, there were loads of cultural differences between Arizona and Afghanistan, but I had very interesting and entertaining experiences. People always seemed friendly and helpful. I never got into any real difficulties or scrapes, even though I was a fairly clueless teenager! Times were more gentle back then." - Peg Podlich (Pictured at right). # 2 Kabul Gorge or locally known as Tang-i-Gharoo which led to the Darae Maiee-Par (Flying Fish Valley). This is the highway which connects Kabul with the province city of Jalalabad. # 3 "In the spring of 1968, my family took a public, long-distance Afghan bus through the Khyber Pass to visit Pakistan (Peshawar and Lahore). The road was rather bumpy in that direction, too. As I recall, it was somewhat harrowing at certain points with a steep drop off on one side and a mountain straight up on the other! I remember that, before we left Kabul, my father paid for a young man to go around the bus with a smoking censor to bless the bus or ward off the evil eye. I guess it worked - we had a safe trip." - Peg Podlich. # 4 Peg Podlich, in the sun glasses, taking a family trip on a bus going from Kabul, Afghanistan to Peshawar, Pakistan. # 5 Guard duty at the King's Palace in Kabul. # 6 Mr. Bahir (Left), Dr. Podlich's counterpart at the Higher Teachers College of Kabul, and an Afghan teacher (Right). "The Higher Teachers College was a two-year institution for training college-level teachers, located at Seh Aqrab Road and Pul-e-Surkh Road (on the west side of Kabul, near Karte-Seh)." - Peg Podlich # 7 Afghan girls coming home from school. "Afghan girls, as well as boys, were educated up to the high school level, and although girls (and boys) wore uniforms, the girls were not allowed to wear a chadri (burka) on their way to secondary school. Able young women attended college, as did the men." - Peg Podlich # 8 Gas Station. # 9 The Salang Tunnel, located in Parwan province, is a link between northern and southern Afghanistan crossing the Hindu Kush mountain range under the difficult Salang Pass. The Soviet-built tunnel opened in 1964. # 10 (L-R) Jan and Peg Podlich at Paghman Gardens, which was destroyed during the years of war before the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. # 11 King's Hill in Paghman Gardens. "If you look at photos of the devastation of Europe or Asia after WWII and compare them with what you see nowadays or from pre-war times, you can get a similar feeling while looking at these photos from Afghanistan in the late 1960s... Perhaps looking at these old pictures when Afghanistan was a land of peace can encourage folks to see Afghanistan and its people as they were and could be. It is important to know that we have more in common with people in other lands than what separates us." - Peg Podlich # 12 Young Afghans walking home. # 13 A residential hillside in Kabul. "For the year that I was in Kabul, my family lived in a house in Shari-Nau, up the road from the Shari-Nau Park.Ę My parents had lived in Denver, Colorado in the 1940s. My mother would say that Kabul reminded her of Denver: about a mile in altitude, often sunny, with beautiful mountains in the distance. I thought it seemed somewhat like Arizona because of the arid landscape and lack of rain. Since I was born [in Arizona], it was very easy for me to appreciate the stark beauty of the landscape there in Afghanistan." - Peg Podlich. # 14 A group of young Afghans share tea and music. # 15 Frying jilabee, a sweet dessert. # 16 Sisters pose for a photograph in Kabul. # 17 Chemistry lesson in a mud-walled classroom. # 18 Parking lot of the American International School of Kabul (AISK). The school no longer exists, although alumni stay in touch through Facebook and hold reunions every few years at different cities around the U.S. The next reunion will be held in Boston in 2013. "AISK's last year was 1979, so the school had a 20 year history. AISK was located on the same campus that currently houses the American University of Afghanistan (on Darul-aman Rd in west Kabul). In 1967-68, there were about 250 students attending AISK and 18 graduating seniors." - Peg Podlich # 19 Masjid Shah-e-do Shamsheera in Kabul. # 20 Afghan workers make a street repair in Kabul. # 21 An Afghan Army parade through Kabul. # 22 Afghan military band. # 23 New Year's Celebration. # 24 Carving detail on an arch. # 25 A mosque building stands west to the mausoleum of King Abdul Rahman -- in the present Zarnigar Park, center of Kabul -- which was the Bostan Serai built by King Habibullah (son of King Abdul Rahman). Today is stands as a store room for the Department of Preservation of Monuments, Ministry of Culture. # 26 Students at the Higher Teachers College of Kabul where Dr. Podlich, the photographer, worked and taught for two year's with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). # 27 Young students dancing to music on a school playground. # 28 American International School of Kabul (AISK), Senior English class. Peg Podlich is on the left. "I was in my senior year (my final year) of high school and I attended the American International School of Kabul out on Darul-aman Road. In Tempe, I had walked four blocks to school; in Kabul a school bus stopped outside our home. Jan and I ran out when the driver honked the horn. On the bus, we were supervised by Indian ladies, wearing saris of course, and were driven with about 20 kids back through Kabul, around the hill to the west side of town." - Peg Podlich # 29 Jan Podlich on a shopping trip in Istalif. Jan in a short, sleeveless dress and the woman to the right in a chadri (burka). "We arrived in Kabul one sunshiny morning in June... My dad met us and was able to whisk us through the customs. We proceeded into Kabul in a UN 'kombi' (kind of an old school SUV). I was tired, but I can remember being amazed at the sight of colorful (dark blue, green and maroon) ghosts that were wafting along the side of the road. My dad explained there were women underneath those chadris, and that some women had to wear them out in public. We never called the garments burkas... Depending on the country, women practicing purdah (Islamic custom requiring women to cover up) wear different styles of coverings, which have different names." - Peg Podlich. # 30 An Afghan boy decorates cakes. # 31 Young men cooking kebabs. "... Don't get me started about the smell and taste of lamb kebobs straight from the brazier! Yum! We had a naan oven not so far from the house. That was completely fascinating to watch the baker shape the naan, make slits in it with his fingers, pick up a stick and - in a quick, smooth motion - pick up the dough, bend over the hole in the top of the oven and plunk the naan smack dab on the side wall of the oven. After the correct number of minutes, he would reach in and tug the baked bread off the wall with the same stick and pull it right out. During that operation, he did not get burned by the fire, blazing away on the floor in the center of the oven. It was almost like a seated dance, really; the movements were that graceful." - Peg Podlich # 32 Men and boys washing and swimming in the Kabul River. # 33 A group of Afghan men look out over Istalif, about 18 miles northwest of Kabul, which was a centuries-old center of pottery making and other tourist attractions. The village was nearly destroyed by major fighting between "Northern Alliance" forces and the Taliban in the late 1990s. # 34 A Buddha statue in Bamiyan Valley- a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The two largest statues (not pictured here) were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. "That was a bumpy, rough trip, but I'll never forget how wide and green the valley was or how monumental those two Buddha statues were, carved into the face of the cliff... The statues were a magnificent sight, even to someone like me, who did not really understand the history or technical achievement of those statues." - Peg Podlich # 35 According to UNESCO, "The cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley represent the artistic and religious developments which from the 1st to the 13th centuries characterized ancient Bakhtria, integrating various cultural influences into the Gandhara school of Buddhist art. The area contains numerous Buddhist monastic ensembles and sanctuaries, as well as fortified edifices from the Islamic period. The site is also testimony to the tragic destruction by the Taliban of the two standing Buddha statues, which shook the world in March 2001." # 36 Dr. Bill Podlich on a hillside in Kabul. "My dad was a professor of Elementary Education, specializing in teaching Social Studies, at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona from 1949 until he retired in 1981. He had always said that since he had served in WWII... he wanted to serve in the cause of peace. In 1967, he was hired by UNESCO as an Expert on Principles of Education, for a two-year stint in Kabul, Afghanistan at the Higher Teachers College... Throughout his adult life, because he was interested in social studies, whenever he traveled around (in Arizona, to Mexico and other places), he continued to take pictures. In Afghanistan he took half-frame color slides (on Kodachrome), and I believe he used a small Olympus camera." 6 Afghan boys, men, and women, some in bare feet, shop at a marketplace in Kabul, Afghanistan, in May of 1964. (AP Photo) # 7 Motorcade for President Eisenhower's visit to Kabul, Afghanistan, on December 9, 1959. Eisenhower met briefly with the 45-year-old Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, to discuss Soviet influence in the region and increased U.S. aid to Afghanistan.(Thomas J. O'Halloran, LOC) # 8 Residents of Afghanistan line the route of U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower's tour in Kabul, Afghanistan, on December 9, 1959.(AP Photo) # 9 Dancers perform in street of Kabul, Afghanistan, December 9, 1959 following President Eisenhower's arrival from Karachi. After a five hour stay in Kabul, Ike flew on to New Delhi. (AP Photo) # 10 Afghan Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 fighters and Ilyushin Il-28 bombers in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the visit of the U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, in December of 1959. (Thomas J. O'Halloran, LOC) # 11 A shopfront display of fruits and nuts in Kabul, in November of 1961. (AP Photo/Henry S. Bradsher) # 12 Children in a Kabul street, November, 1961. (AP Photo/Henry Burroughs) # 13 A modern traffic light stands incongruously amid burqa-clad women sitting on a Kabul street corner with their backs to their men on May 25, 1964. (AP Photo/Henry Burroughs) # 14 Afghan women, men, and child in traditional dress ride in a cart through an arid, rocky landscape, November, 1959.(Robert P. Martin, LOC) # 15 An Afghan worker checks a Russian-made truck in the Kabul Janagalak factory in an unspecified date. The factory situated in the center of the city as the only firm for making vehicle's chassis was plundered, like other public properties in the Afghan capital, during the Afghan mujahedin rule from 1992 to 1996. (AFP/Getty Images) # 16 The entrance to the Karkar coal mine around 12 kilometers northeast of Pulikhumri, the provincial town of the Northern province of Baghlan. The Karkar coal deposit at one time met the needs of Kabul city. (AFP/Getty Images) # 17 A caravan of mules and camels cross the high, winding trails of the Lataband Pass in Afghanistan on the way to Kabul, on October 8, 1949. (AP Photo/Max Desfor) # 18 In Washington, D.C., Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah talks with US President John F. Kennedy in the car that took them to the White House on September 8, 1963. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images) # 19 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (black hat), and Marshal Nikolai Bulganin review an Afghan honor guard wearing old German uniforms, on their arrival in Kabul, Afghanistan, on December 15, 1955. At left is the Afghan Prime Minister Sardar Mohammed Daud Khan, and behind, in cap, the foreign minister, Prince Naim. (AP Photo) # 20 Street scene in Kabul, in November of 1966. (AP Photo) # 21 Activity in a city park in Kabul, on May 28, 1968. (AP Photo/James Martenhoff) # 22 This photo shows the now-destroyed Kabul-Herat highway, that linked the Afghan capital to the Iranian border city of Mashad. Built in the early second half of the 20th century, the highway has been virtually destroyed through decades of warfare. (AFP/Getty Images) # 23 Modern new Finance Ministry building in Kabul, on June 9, 1966, with a public, western-style cafeteria and sidewalk restaurant, facing a water fountain which is illuminated in color at night. (AP Photo) # 24 Kabul, Afghanistan, November 1961. (AP Photo/Henry Burroughs) # 25 Scene inside the modern new government printing plant in Kabul on June 9, 1966, which houses Kabul Times. (AP Photo) # 26 Tajbeg (Queen's) Palace, the Palace of Amanullah Khan in Kabul, photographed on October 8, 1949. Amanullah Khan, King of Afghanistan in the early 20th century, attempted to modernize his country and make many reforms to eliminate many age-old customs and habits. His ambitious plans and ideas were based on what he had seen during a visit to Europe. Click here to see a present-day view of the palace, now an abandoned wreck. (AP Photo/Max Desfor) # 27 A quiet scene in a street through the bazaar of Kabul, on December 31, 1969. (AP Photo) # 28 A panoramic view showing the old and new buildings in Kabul, in August of 1969. The Kabul River flows through the city, center right. In the background on the hilltop is the mausoleum of late King Mohammad Nadir Shah. (AP Photo) # 29 Afghan man leading laden camels and donkeys through an arid, rocky landscape, in November, 1959. (Robert P. Martin, LOC) # 30 The King of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah rides in his limousine on Kabul's central road Idga Wat in this 1968 photo. Zahir Shah, the last of King of Afghanistan lived in exile in Rome since a 1973 coup, returning to Afghanistan in 2002, after the removal of the Taliban. He passed away in Kabul in 2007, at the age of 92. (AP Photo/Handout, The Family of the King of Afghansitan) # 31 Afghan boys play with kites as men walk past, in November of 1959. (Robert P. Martin, LOC) # 32 Vendors sell various fuits and nuts at an outdoor market in Kabul, in November of 1961. (AP Photo/Henry S. Bradsher) # 33 Women, wearing traditional burqas and Persian slippers, walk alongside men, cars and horse carts, in a street in Kabul, in 1951. At the time, this street was one of only three paved streets in the capital city. (AP Photo) # 34 A view of one of the new mosques erected in the suburb of Kabul, in November of 1961. (AP Photo/Henry S. Bradsher) # 35 Afghan boys, men, and a woman walk through a street in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 26, 1954. (AP Photo)