As a landmark that places the world in the center of Kabul, the Kabul Municipality officials unveiled a gigantic hand-painted globe with an oversized Afghanistan in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
On Tuesday, December 13, local authorities unveiled a giant hand-painted globe of the planet Earth in the Dahan-e-Bagh square of Kabul, replete with an enlarged Afghanistan. The magnificent structure is already making a splash.
The sphere, which has a diameter of around eight meters, will rotate twelve times each minute on top of a mechanism that will move somewhat more quickly than the infamous Kabul traffic that will surround it.
Twelve other intersections with diverse facades are presently being built, according to Deputy Mayor of Kabul Mohammad Khaled Sajestani, and some of these intersections will soon have their work finished.
It is understandable for bystanders to believe that Afghanistan is larger than official maps indicate because, in the newly built globe, the country occupies land usually designated for Pakistan and Iran, two of its neighbors.
But the project’s main engineer and artist, who has been accustomed to the cracks being made about the size disparity, claimed that it was simply done to give the country “prominence.”
Esmatullah Habibi, the chief engineer, explained that they “zoomed” in on it so that people could “recognize” their own country.
However, many Kabul residents from various neighborhoods applaud the decoration of intersections and request that the administration takes further action in this domain.
