Parwan lies immediately north of Kabul, where the valleys of the Kohistan rise into the southern foothills of the Hindu Kush. For centuries the main routes from the capital to northern Afghanistan have climbed through it: first along the Ghorband valley and, since the 1960s, through the tunnel beneath the Salang pass. Its capital, Charikar, stands at about 1,600 metres on the road north, some 65 km from Kabul, among vineyards and orchards.
Valleys and rivers
The heart of the province is the Ghorband valley, a long corridor running roughly 100 km from the foot of the Shibar pass in the west to its mouth near Charikar. Its floor rises from about 1,700 metres in the east to more than 2,500 metres below the pass, and its name probably means the mountain barrier toward Ghor. The Ghorband river drains it, joins the Panjshir not far from Charikar, and the two flow on together into the Kabul River.
Side valleys such as Siahgird and Dara-ye Sayyedan branch off on either side. Before the Salang tunnel opened, the gravel road through Ghorband was the main highway to the north, and until the early 20th century the village of Tutom-dara, at the mouth of the valley, collected duties on trade goods.
History and heritage
On the plain where the Panjshir and Ghorband rivers meet lie the ruins of Begram, recognised in 1922 by the French scholar Alfred Foucher as the ancient city of Kapisa. According to the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, it was a summer capital of the Kushan king Kanishka. Excavations begun in 1936 uncovered a celebrated treasure of carved Indian ivories, Chinese lacquer, and glass and bronzes from the Roman world — vivid evidence of the trade the Kushans conducted between India, China and Rome. Most of it is kept in the Kabul Museum, with some pieces in the Musée Guimet in Paris.
In the Ghorband valley, near the village of Fondukistan, French archaeologists excavated a Buddhist monastery of the late 6th or early 7th century. Centuries later, in 1221, the Khwarazmian sultan Jalal al-Din inflicted a serious defeat on a pursuing Mongol army at Parwan, before Genghis Khan himself forced him to retreat.
People and livelihoods
Parwan is home to Tajiks, Pashtuns and Hazaras. In Ghorband, for example, most villagers are Sunni Tajiks, Shinwari Pashtuns live in several eastern villages, and Hazaras are the majority in the west. Dari and Pashto are both widely spoken.
Farming and fruit are the mainstays. Ghorband’s orchards yield almonds, apples, apricots, grapes, mulberries, peaches, pears, pomegranates, quinces and walnuts; surplus grapes and apricots are dried for sale, and some fresh grapes are packed in small wooden or clay containers to last through the off-season. Charikar is known for its fine grapes and its pottery, as well as for cutlery and silverwork.
Food of the valley
Several popular Afghan dishes are said to come from Ghorband: shola-ye ghorbandi, thick rice and mung beans served with a lamb and vegetable stew, and shorwa-ye ghorbandi, a lamb and vegetable soup. The valley’s teapot soup, shorwa-ye chaynaki, once served to travellers at roadside rest stops, has a fine reputation, and the village of Ashawa is known for a dried cheese, panir-e Ashawa. Fresh and dried mulberries, tut and talkhan, are part of everyday food across the Kohistan.