Tashkent Facelift Tears Up the Past

Historians in Uzbekistan are looking on aghast as historical monuments and historical buildings are torn down in the capital Tashkent in the name of modernity.



The latest attack on Tashkent’s past involves the Alexander Nevsky church, a building from the 19th century in the centre of town. On November 21, independent media reported that it had been demolished



“I’m outraged. This is vandalism, mindless treatment of our nation’s history,” said Nina Nemtsova, an archeologist in Tashkent, who studies the monuments of Central Asia.



The Orthodox church was designed by the famous Russian architect Alexei Benois at a time when the Tsarist empire governed this part of Central Asia from Tashkent. The building lost its five cupolas and bell-tower in the 1930s when the Soviet authorities were engaged in all-out war against religion, and later served as a bank and offices. Despite this, the remaining portion of the church was designated a protected building.



“It was a very important building,” said an Uzbek historian who requested anonymity. “Tashkent has lost a part of its spirituality. The building was in very good condition and everybody was hoping there would be a congregation there one day.”



He described the destruction of the church and other monuments as “a general plan for state vandalism”.



As well as bulldozing part of their city’s history, the authorities tore up hundreds of old trees in the park where the church was located.



Officials said new administrative offices would be thrown up in a style more in keeping with the modern architectural look to which they aspire.



A major programme of public works launched in January has seen some old buildings and monuments torn down and others restored across Uzbekistan. Among the victims were statue and an avenue built in remembrance of Soviet soldiers from Uzbekistan killed in the Second World War.



The carefree abandon and haste with which the authorities have destroyed valuable sites has baffled and disappointed local experts.



Valery Germanov, a senior academic at the History Institute in Tashkent, says that if it really was in the way, the church could have been lifted up and shifted to another location.



“It would have been good to move it somewhere else, as they did when they were straightening Tverskaya Street in Moscow and found methods for moving them,” he said. “By taking time and thinking it through logically, this building could have been fitted into a [modern] architectural context.



A woman works for a printing firm near to where the church used to stand, says history will judge those who destroyed it.



“We should be following the example of other countries which preserve such monuments,” she said. “In ten or 20 years’ time, those who replace our current rulers will say the perpetrators of this [destruction] were barbarians.”



(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)