Agriculture is the main source of people's income and the existence of Murghab and Hari rivers makes the available land suitable for cultivation.
The area was so isolated and the destruction of mountain tracks so complete that it took six weeks before word reached the Russian posts at Murghab and Khorog.
On the Tajik side, the pass is 80 km by road to Murghab and about 850 km to Dushanbe.
The Murghāb River (Persian/Pashto: مرغاب), also called Margos, Margu and Margiana River (Old Greek: Μαργιανή), and also transliterated as Murgab (from Russian Мургаб) and Murgap (from Turkmen), is an 850 km long river in Central Asia.
Usoi Dam, a natural landslide dam on the Murghab River in Tajikistan