Visiting Topchee school and Bamiyan Province

Topchee village is about 20 minutes drive, though only 7 or 8 miles from the town of Bamiyan, home to the giant Buddha statues that were destroyed by the Taliban 2001. The village and our school are across the river from another ancient and amazing site. “Shar-i-Zohak”, often called “the red city” is an ancient citadel on top of the red cliffs that tower more than 500 ft. above the valley floor. this site probably dates from the 7th century or earlier, part of what is known as the Ghorid Empire. The same people who built the minaret of Ghor and legendary golden city. This civilization which lasted many centuries was destroy by the armies of Ghengis Khan in the early part of the 11th century. The descendants of these armies that swept out of the Northern plains of central Asia are probably the ancestors of the majority “Hazara” ethnic group of Bamiyan province and our sister school children in Topchee. You can see in some of the pictures how “oriental” the faces of some of the children are. The cave monasteries of the Buddhist people that made the giant Buddha statues date back even further. This area was a major spiritual center for Buddhists from China and across Southern Asia almost two thousand years ago.