Bokhtar Street runs parallel to Rudaki Avenue a few blocks east, and represents an older, more local face of Dushanbe. The street has some of the best traditional restaurants and tea houses in the city, the Gurminj Museum of Musical Instruments, and a more relaxed commercial atmosphere away from the main boulevard.
The residential streets branching off Bokhtar toward the east have preserved more of the Soviet-era housing stock and daily life patterns than the renovated showpiece of Rudaki Avenue. Walking these streets in the early morning is to experience a city going about its normal business rather than performing for visitors.