Shirpoor

Shirpoor is one better known and fasted growing neigborhoods in central Kabul . The fairly small fifteen to twenty block area is famous for its luxurious mansions and $10,000/mo rents. Many foreign companies, UN offices, and famous Afghan warlords all coexist peacefully and take up residence there. Some of the houses contain over forty bedrooms, several fully-equipped kitchens, and small sheds inside high walls that serve as living quarters for the cooks and guards, who often make less than $200/mo. Because of the extreme poverty that exists on every edge of the neighborhood, and the extreme wealth within it, Shirpoor is often given as proof of the international community's ignominious waste and detachment from the very people they are trying to help.

In the top picture you can see recently constructed office buildings that lay just behind a make-shift garbage dump, old Soviet tank remains, and the mud walls of a local resident's house. In the bottom picture is one of the typically ostentatious Shirpoor houses nearing completion.