Most Yagnobs, some 15,000, live in lowland Tajikistan, the result of the March 29, 1970, deportation of the entire nation.  On that day, helicopters swooped in and forcibly took the Yagnobs away from their ancestral homes, nominally to promote cotton farming in the lowlands but in fact to get them away from the Afghan border (fergananews.com/articles/1435).

            Like other peoples the Soviets deported, the Yagnobs had a hard time adapting to the conditions in the lowlands. For many of them, their new “homes” were too hot, work in the cotton fields unpleasant, and exposure to the more modernized Tajiks difficult for people who had lived cut off from the world all of their lives.               Not surprisingly, they tried to return home.  In 1975, several succeeded, but in 1978, the Soviet authorities again came and deported them by force.  In the early 1980s, however, more Yagnobs sought to return; but only after 1985 did Moscow give them their right to live in the places from which they had been deported.   http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/yagnobs-last-nation-soviets-deported.html