We report about first aerosol lidar measurements that were performed in Dushanbe, Tajikistan (Central Asia) during our Central Asian Dust EXperiment (CADEX) project. The determined intensive property depolarization ratio allows an aerosol characterization and often shows mineral dust at lofted layers during spring time and optically and geometrically thick layers that touch the surface during summer time. The intensive property lidar ratio shows lower values for Asian dust than the lidar ratios measured from Saharan dust during our former campaigns in Morocco and Cape Verde. We show one measurement example from CADEX, allocate the possible dust source area for this measurement and discuss the measured differences between Asian and Saharan dust.