Even though the Tajik people have long lived in the region, the idea of Tajikistan didn’t really exist until the 20th century. The Tajiks are the descendants of Iranian peoples who have lived in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan since the middle of the first millennium BCE. They were the core of the ancient population of Khorezm and Bactria, which formed part of Sogdiana. Sogdiana was home to two of the major cities – Samarkand and Bukhara (today in Uzbekistan) – of the Silk Road, and as a resultwas very wealthy. Sogdian merchants could be found all along the Silk Road, even in China, and Sogdia was a place of cultural exchange between the Greco-Roman world, Iran, India and China. Eventually, Sogdia came under the rule of the ancient Persian Archaemid Empire. The region also briefly faced the invasion of Alexander the Great. The Arab conquest of central Asia, beginning in the mid-7th century, brought Islam to the region. However, with the rise of the Samanids, the Tajiks came under the rule of another Iranian dynasty. Turkic invaders (from what is now Mongolia) came through the region in 999 AD. Because both the invaders and invaded were Muslims, many Tajiks adopted Turkic culture. In the 1860s and 1870s, Russian conquest in Central Asia brought the Tajik population under the control of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, a considerable proportion of the Tajik people were included in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1929, the Tajik region became a Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) in its own right. This was the first time that the Tajik people were recognised as having their own state – though not an independent one, as it remained under Soviet rule. During the period of Soviet rule, though Tajikistan remained the poorest part of the Soviet Union, the region was transformed. Dams were constructed for electric power generation, and industry was developed in the Vakhsh River valley. Soviet health care and education were introduced to the region and Dushanbe (known as Stalinabad from 1929 to 1961), once merely a village, was transformed into a modern capital city. The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 meant that Tajikistan finally received independence. Unfortunately, the country soon fell into Civil War as communists struggled with democratic and Islamic forces over who would rule in future. A ceasefire was achieved in 1997, but Tajikistan remains under the one-party rule of the Russia-backed President Emomali Rahmon. For more information about the history of Tajikistan, particularly the Silk Road, we recommend our other articles: Silk Road Explorers and Books to Read for the Silk Road.