Poetic praise: Tajikistan’s Interior Minister pens ode to the country’s President

Tajikistan’s Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda has praised the country’s President, Emomali Rahmon, in rousing poetic verse, EurasiaNet reports. Adding to this sweet tale, the head of the country’s security committee wrote a glowing review of the work.

Where did this outburst in verse spring from?

Mr Rahimzoda’s efforts were born of a poetry competition to mark the new President’s Day national holiday, which will now be held each year on 16 November. The 55 couplet-long In Praise of the Leader of the Nation published in the state-run newspaper Jumhuriyat was simply signed “Nihon”, meaning “secretive” in Tajik, a pen name later revealed to be the Interior Minister himself.

According to the poem, President Rahmon can not only be credited with establishing peace following the country’s civil war in the 1990s and founding the Tajik army, but is the very “face of God on Earth”. Low-key.

The poem aroused quite a reaction in Saymumin Yatimov, the security committee head: “A people that has no hero cannot consider itself content,” he exclaimed, adding that the verse really helped him to appreciate the achievements of the Tajik leader.

Perhaps we can expect a haiku of high praise next?

Source: Eurasianet.org