Tajikistan

Since its civil war in the 1990s, this landlocked country in Central Asia has remained economically unstable, with the lowest per capita income in the region. Tajikistan's foreign revenue comes mainly from exports of aluminum and cotton, along with remittances from nearly one million Tajiks working abroad, primarily in Russia, although the country's GDP grew an estimated 7.5 percent in 2013. With Persian roots, Tajik culture remains under-examined due to the lack of interest in Soviet times and the political and social difficulties since.