Afghanistan in the 1950s
this article is based on pictures and some film found by the son of some guy who worked in afghanistan in the 50s as an engineer. the link includes videos the guy took also and what his thoughts were while recording it. it's mostly positive but for interesting to hear based on what we know happened later.
<It was 1952. Afghanistan was still a kingdom, and King Zahir had hired foreign technicians - including American engineers and construction specialists - to help build the new post-war Afghanistan. Post-World War Two, that is.
Afghanistan faced the world with confidence. Revenue from its main export, the karakul lambskin, had grown steadily as the furriers, milliners and clothiers of a stricken Europe decamped to the United States. Although poor and undeveloped, Afghanistan in the late 1940s held $100m dollars in reserves.
Glenn Foster carried with him a 16mm camera, and in the seven years that he was to live and work in Afghanistan he shot hour upon hour of film - of Afghan life and landscapes, of engineering projects, of Christmas parties in the American community. And in those hours of film he captured the country in a hopeful moment of its history that is all but forgotten.
Foster’s films are mainly shot in southern Afghanistan, in Kandahar, the old capital of the south, and in Helmand, an area that has often made headline news as a bloody battleground since the US led foreign forces into Afghanistan in 2001.>
pomegranate stall
selling coats in the street
glenn foster and assistant mehtabuddin
mehtabuddin today in the US where he moved and lives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8529/index.html
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Kabul 1972:
Women dressed modern and were free to marry whoever they wanted for love.
