" Tajikistan's national library, the biggest in Central Asia. It opened in 2012 and covers an area of forty-five thousand square meters over nine floors. It has room for ten million books and, in order to fill all the shelves, each household was asked to donate books for the opening. Journalists who have been inside said there are only books in one of the halls; in the rest the shelves stand empty. "

― Erika Fatland , Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan