During his five-day visit (March 22-26) to the northern province of Sughd, President Emomali Rahmon has inaugurated a number of economic and social facilities there, according to the Tajik president’s official website. 

On March 26, Emomali Rahmon attended an official reopening ceremony of the rehabilitated Park named after Abu Mahmoud Khujandi in Khujand, the capital of the Sughd province.

Abu Mahmoud Hamid ibn Khidr Khujandi (940 - 1000) was a Muslim Central Asian astronomer and mathematician who lived in the late 10th century and helped build an observatory, near the city of Ray (near today's Tehran), in Iran.  He was born in Khujand; a bronze monument of the astronomer is present in the Park Khujand.

Khujandi worked under the patronage of the Buwayhid Amirs at the observatory near Ray, Iran, where he is known to have constructed the first huge mural sextant in 994 AD, intended to determine the Earth's axial tilt ("obliquity of the ecliptic") to high precision.

He determined the axial tilt to be 23°32'19" for the year 994 AD.  He noted that measurements by earlier astronomers had found higher values (Indians: 24°; Ptolemy 23° 51') and thus discovered that the axial tilt is not constant but is in fact (currently) decreasing.  His measurement of the axial tilt was however about 2 minutes too small, probably due to his heavy instrument settling over the course of the observations.

Planetarium has been built in the Park.  Construction of the Planetarium has been financed by a local entrepreneur.   

While in Sughd, Emomali Rahmon also inaugurated the state-of-the-art greenhouse MMK Agro LTD, which consists of two parts: the hydroponic part; and the organic part.  

Besides, the head of state participated in a groundbreaking ceremony for laying a super-intensive orchard in the area of five hectares.  

Recall, Emomali Rahmon arrived in Khujand on March 12 for participation in the main Navrouz celebrations.  

The main Navrouz celebrations were held at the Khujand central stadium.  Around 12,000 so people – many of them schoolchildren and university students participated in theatrical show.

The celebrations lasted two hours and involved dancing, marches, culinary demonstrations and shows of local fabric crafts. At the end of the celebrations, fireworks were let off and speeches of gratitude delivered to the president.

Speaking at the celebrations, the head of state, in particular, noted, “Keeping homes clean and observing sanitary standards is one of the finest qualities of our people.  And especially in situations when all kinds of infectious diseases are spreading fast.”  “Our health is, first and foremost, in our own hands,” Rahmon noted.