Anthropologist Tobias Marschall spent 11 months living among nomadic Pamir Kyrgyz herders in the isolated mountain valleys of northeastern Afghanistan between 2015 and 2019. His photographs intimately document their migrations and culture in an environment where temperatures, on average, rise above freezing for only two months a year.
Pamir Kyrgyz Nomads On 'The Roof Of The World'
- By RFE/RL

1
Pamir Kyrgyz children at their nomadic camp in Afghanistan’s Pamir Mountains. The boy’s back is pinned with talismans in the belief they will protect his health in a land with rare access to medical care.

2
Fat-tailed sheep and goats, the livestock of Kyrgyz Pamir shepherds in northeastern Afghanistan’s remote Wakhan Corridor

3
A half-dozen yurts, a corral, a mud-brick guesthouse, and a mosque -- a typical summer camp for nomadic herders at Hasht Goz at the entrance of the Little Pamir valley

4
A feast with clan elders inside a yurt at the Qurbon Ait settlement in the Pamirs. Small pieces of liver are dipped with meat from fat-tail sheep into salt water after a round of tea with milk and broth.