A couple of months back, Marion's cousin Tamsin was travelling in Tajikistan with her partner, Guido. They went to Khorog museum and found this piano:
This fascinating Soviet-style old-school museum exhibits crampons and the first Russian piano to arrive in Badakhshan (10 Russian soldiers spent two months carrying it over the mountains from Osh in 1913) along with portraits of Stalin and the basket of a collective farm's star potato-picker. The dilapidated collection is in need of a good dust but that rather adds to the charm. - Lonely Planet
It's an J. Becker. We initially assumed it was named after John J. Becker, an American composer, but a piano forum suggests otherwise:
The Piano Atlas indicates that Jacob Becker went to St. Petersburg in 1841 (from Germany by other sources) where he began what became the high end piano maker for the Czars and their retinue. This Russian maker whose name as J. Becker was known on the fallboards appearing in the best homes of Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as in both conservatories where the formidable Russian school of pianism began and was fostered. Becker was apparently a pretty good piano maker until the Soviet era. Their output was always pretty small. - David Burton, Piano World
Unfortunately, this one now appears to be used to store cleaning equipment...
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