The Soviets introduced these tractors to Afghanistan in the 1970s, as Moscow tried to shore up support for the pro-Communist government in Kabul, recalls Mohammad Tahir, an employee of the Afghan ministry of agriculture at the time. The tractors' trip to Pakistan starts decades ago to the country's west. These Soviet-designed vehicles are now an integral part of farming in rural Pakistan, where they've made many landowners rich. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko even gave Russia's Vladimir Putin a tractor for his 70th birthday last October. These cheery, cherry-red beasts are known as "Russian tractors," which geographically, is close - they're from Russia's neighbor to the west, Belarus, which has been a global powerhouse of tractor production since Soviet days. A Belarusian tractor laden with harvested sugarcane idles outside a sugar mill.ĭHOUL RANJHA, Pakistan - There's a cache of Pakistani songs that celebrate the enormous tractors that are ubiquitous throughout the country, like this boppy tune by musician Mehboob Hussain Naaz, "I plough my field with my Russi tractor and then I meet you, my beloved."
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