In Kabul 
Anatol Lieven
Downtown Kabul is Fat City, Afghan style. The first shock for a new visitor is how undamaged and commercially busy it looks. On my second day, I bought a camera, one of a large range, from the only Hindu shopkeeper left in town, and French cheese and Carr’s water biscuits with sesame seeds from a shop in Flower Street – which had a far more elaborate choice of English biscuits than most of the better US supermarkets.
In the exchange market, huge sums of money change hands every day. Or rather, huge piles. With the Afghani at around 38,000 to the dollar, and the largest note the 10,000 Afghani, you need to bring along a shopping bag if you change $100. There is even a new international hotel, set up by an extremely brave and enterprising returned Afghan emigré from New Jersey. For a variety of reasons, it would be difficult to fit it into the Michelin star system, but it certainly deserves five stars for effort.
Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.
Anatol Lieven reported from Moscow for the Times from 1990 to 1996 and is now a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington DC. His latest book is Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World.
Other articles by this contributor:
The Push for War · The Threat from America
A Trap of Their Own Making · the consequences of the new imperialism
Preserver and Destroyer · Pakistan’s Predicament
We do not deserve these people · America and its Army
print layout
tell a friend