The other day I was talking about the popularity of Chinese minivans in Tajikistan (rus), especially in the capital of the country. I made a translation of some excerpts in my roundup.

There are many Chinese companies which produce these small vans but people in Dushanbe have found a general name for all of them – Tangem. Tangem is a name of a nurse from Chinese soap opera, which was extremely popular in Tajikistan.

In China this van costs 3,000 USD, and when it is transported to Dushanbe the price rises to 5,000 USD. While the fee for trolleybus equals 30 dirams (10 cents), for bus 40 dirams (14 cents), and for marshrutka 60 dirams (20 cents) in the city of Dushanbe, then for Tangem the passengers pay 1 somoni (35 cents).

No matter how good the minivans are for the population, the mayor of Dushanbe decided to put a ban on them.

From now on it is prohibited to carry passengers by tangems on the main roads (streets) of the city. The main argument is that the rapidly increasing number of tangems in the city is becoming a reason for frequent car accidents.

The vans are so small and unstable that even during the small cutting-ins they immediately overturn and cause hard health after-effects for the passengers. Taking into consideration that the number of tangems is way too high, the car accidents happen (ed) almost everyday.

This is a good example of how quick are made the decisions in Tajikistan. People were not given a small notice beforehand (at least one month) that the time for tangems is over.

The problem is that people who own a tangem will suffer a lot because many of them took a loan to purchase it, some of them sold their cars (sedans) or marshrutkas and bought a minivan. Many people had not worked even a day when the decision was made.

The other problem is that the minivans are so fragile that it will not be possible to work on them outside the city because the roads are just terrible. So, poor people should now figure out how to receive back their investments.