The Bamian Buddhas are now a tourist attraction with tickets going for 58 cents for Afghans and $3.45 for foreigners
The cash-strapped Taliban are so broke they have resorted to selling tickets to visit the remnants of two gargantuan Buddha statues the extremist group blew to smithereens in 2001 after declaring them false idols, according to a report.
A Taliban official near the site of the destroyed Buddha statues.
A ticket booth set up near the gaping hole in the cliff where one of the two ancient monuments stood charges Afghans 58 cents and foreigners $3.45 to visit the site in the Hazarajat region of Afghanistan, the Washington Post reported.
The statues, known as the Bamian Buddhas, were carved into the sandstone cliffs and date back to the 6th century, with the tallest one reaching 180-feet.
Taliban founder Mohammad Omar in 2001 deemed the statues false gods and gave the order to destroy them despite pleas from around the world to protect them.
That March, Taliban soldiers using explosives and antiaircraft guns reduced them to rubble.
The Taliban reclaimed control of the impoverished country in August 2021 following the pullout of American and allied troops who had ousted the group in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
For the Taliban, the remains of the Buddha statues now represent a potential revenue stream and a way to show that they are not the same repressive extremist group that ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.
“Bamian and the Buddhas in particular are of great importance to our government, just as they are to the world,” Atiqullah Azizi, the Taliban’s deputy culture minister, told the Washington Post.
More than 1,000 guards have been assigned to protect cultural heritage sites in the country, he said.
In Bamian, where residents eke out a living through coal mining or subsistence farming, what’s left of the Buddha statues could be a game changer for raising cash.
Last year, Saifurrahman Mohammadi, information and culture director for the regional Taliban government, said 200,000 registered tourists, mostly Afghans, visited the province.
He said they spent an average of about $57 each.
With a promotional campaign, Mohammadi told the newspaper the attraction “could become a significant source of income.”
But memories of the Taliban’s brutal rule leave many Afghans unconvinced.
The report said visitors to the site fall into two groups – soldiers stationed nearby to guard what’s left of the Buddhas and educated Afghans from urban areas who are angry at the group for destroying the statues as well as upending the lives they created over the past 20 years when the Taliban was out of power.
“The Taliban have a mentality from 500 years ago,” a 27-year old man visiting from Iran told the Washington Post. “They’re mentally not capable of making use of this place.”
