Ski tourism has spread to Bamian, Afghanistan in an attempt to opening Afghanistan up again to the world, and at the same time be able to offer the locals year-round jobs:

On a recent February day, only three overseas tourists were visiting, but that was three more than in many years past. The same week, two conferences for Afghans were taking place. And as the month was ending, Bamian hosted an international Ski Challenge, drawing people from half a dozen countries to its pristine mountainsides — some 20 visitors who cheerfully snowshoed their way up the slopes, in lieu of any lifts.

...The nascent ski industry has been promoted heavily by the international Aga Khan Foundation’s Development Network as one of its many Afghan projects. The foundation thought that to build a tourist industry in this remote place, it made sense to make it all-season to promote year-round jobs.

“When we were first talking about tourism, people were laughing at us,” the foundation’s national tourism coordinator, Amir Foladi, said. The foundation financed the training of ski guides, and encouraged Afghans — men and women — to learn to ski, something previously unknown here. (The women managed to do so without violating the conservative dress code by wearing headscarves or helmets.)

Picture by Mauricio Lima for The New York Times.