iv. Modern Town

The crisis in Balḵ’s urban evolution came in the mid-13/19th century. Great damage was done to the town and the surrounding area in the troubled times following its destruction by the amir of Bukhara in 1840 and its recapture by the Afghans of Dōst Moḥammad in 1850, which gave rise to an exodus of many of its Uzbek inhabitants. A further cause of decline was lack of maintenance of the irrigation canals. One of the results was that Balḵ became a very unhealthy place, and it is therefore not surprising that the Afghans, when again in control after 1850, preferred to base their governorate of Turkestan at Taḵta Pol near Mazār-e Šarīf, later at Mazār-e Šarīf itself. The exact date of the move from Balḵ is uncertain (in 1866, according to Barthold, EI¹ III, p. 430; during Moḥammad-Afżal Khan’s governorship of Afghan Turkestan, according to Peacocke, in Gazetteer of Afghanistan IV, p. 110; after 1878, according to Grodekoff, Ride from Samarcand to Harat, London, 1880, p. 80, quoted by Centlivres, p. 124). It may be that at first only a temporary move was intended. In any case the transference was complete and final when the British frontier delimitation commission passed through in 1886. Balḵ’s population was then reckoned to be some 600 families of Tājīks, Uzbeks, and Arabs, of whom 100 were old local families, together with 40 Jewish families and a community of 20 Hindu families originally from Shikarpur in Sind. All lived in the southeastern quarter of the old town inside the wall. The bāzār then had 60 shops. In addition to the permanent inhabitants, there was a floating population of about 1000 Pashtun families in the town and outside the wall. Another source, however, speaks of only 200 Tājīk families (Gazetteer of Afghanistan IV, p. 112; cf. C. E. Yate, Northern Afghanistan, Edinburgh and London, 1888, pp. 255ff.). The decline continued in the following decades. The sketches of Balḵ in the first world war by Niedermayer (p. 48) and in 1924 by Foucher (I, p. 59) depict a mean village of hovels situated to the south of the citadel with a still existing Jewish quarter to the west.

A new phase set in when work on the construction of a new town began in 1934. It was laid out geometrically in concentric circles around a central square with eight radial arteries. The initial plan was overambitious, providing for 1,270 houses together with a large bāzār of some 400 shops and 32 sarāys (K. Ziemke, Als deutscher Gesandter in Afghanistan, Berlin, 1939, p. 229). Actual achievement fell far short; in 1973 (according to Grötzbach, p. 105) only 430 houses had been built and demand for them was weak, the attraction of Mazār-e Šarīf still being dominant throughout the region. According to the preliminary returns of the 1979 census, Balḵ then had only 7,242 inhabitants (communication from D. Balland). Even so, its economic role was by no means negligible. It became an important market for agricultural produce (cotton, melons, almonds, karakul pelts). Buyers from Mazār-e Šarīf came on the market days (Monday and Thursdays) to take advantage of the lower prices, and two-way business with Mazār-e Šarīf grew after the start of a regular bus service. Four cotton firms, two of which had ginneries, were located in Balḵ and its outskirts. After the opening of the asphalted Mazār-e Šarīf-Šeberḡān highway with a 2 km branch to Balḵ in 1970, Balḵ began to attract tourists. From 1972 onward it had the benefit of electricity generated by gas from fields in the region. It also possessed a good primary school and a small hospital. Though only 20 km from Mazār-e Šarīf, Balḵ ranked as a small independent center.