When people in Gulrez, a small village in eastern Tajikistan, feel unwell, they don’t always travel to the nearest town for medical care. Instead, they often turn to Dzhamolov Mahmadali, a local healer in their community, who offers natural treatment using plants from the surrounding mountains.

“I prepare medicine from what grows near us,” he says. “People come to me because they trust these remedies. They’ve known them since childhood.”

Inside his workspace in a small room in his home, Mahmadali sorts dried herbs into open wooden compartments, each labeled and carefully arranged. The scent of mountain thyme, seabuckthorn and wild carnation (Mahalaska) fills the air. A small grinding machine sits next to an oil extractor—modern tools that have changed the way Mahmadali works.