The Different Faces of Tashkent

The Different Faces of Tashkent TASHKENT, Uzbekistan May 12, 1996 Adam Smith Albion As in many cities, the Old and New Towns of Tashkent are divided by water. What passes for Tashkent's river is a skinny, sickly-looking stream called the Anhor Canal. It runs north-south through the center of the city. When the Russians under General Cherniayev captured Tashkent in 1865, they established their cantonments to the east of the Anhor. Tashkent at the time was Central Asia's most prosperous city, with a population of 70,000 to 100,000, encircled by walls sixteen miles in cir- cumference. It had belonged to the Khan of Khokand, all of whose lands were des- tined to be conquered and incorporated into Russian Turkestan within a decade. Af- ter the Tsar designated Tashkent the administrative capital of Turkestan in 1867, a permanent Russian presence was assured. In place of an army camp, a Russian settlement grew up. A whole European quarter the New Town took shape on the east bank of the Anhor, ranged around the residence of the new Governor-General, General Kaufman. (As well as building an Orthodox church, the Russians were re- sponsible for introducing viticulture and hog-farming to the region. Presumably, they could not have offended the sensibilities of the Muslim inhabitants more suc- cessfully if they had tried.) The Old Town, with its labyrinthine streets of mud-brick houses and market clearings, punctuated by the domes of mosques or Madrasas [Muslim schools], remained a separate entity to the west of the city. Today Tashkent is Central Asia's largest city with a population of 2.1 million people. (It is twinned, incidentally or perhaps tripleted with Seattle and Birming- ham, England.) The earthquake of April 1966 leveled over half of Tashkent. Evi- dence of the disaster can still be discerned even downtown, despite thirty years of rebuilding: rotting slabs of roofing piled up beside apartment buildings, mysteri- ously undeveloped land alongside main streets, mossy blocks of concrete bulldozed into dumps and abandoned there.., the same sort of indomitable detritus as one still sees in downtown Dresden, half a century after the bombings. New Town: Soviet urban planning Paper trails The earthquake contributed to the distinction between the New and Old Towns by shaking down most of east Tashkent, while treating the west more leniently. The mud-brick withstood the tremors much better than more modern building materials, including the wood and stone of the original Russian dwellings. As a result, New Town has taken on a more contemporary meaning: those sections of Tashkent re- built in concrete aer 1966. The "Russian" New Town was transformed into the "So- Outstanding examples of New-Town architecture are the ghastly Hotel Uzbeki- stan; the Soviet-style skyscraper housing the state press organs; and the huge, empty plaza bordered by government buildings, previously called Red Square and known to everybody since 1991 as Mustaqillik [Maidoni] or "Independence [Square].'1 . The colossal statue of Lenin that overlooked the square has been removed om its pediment. In its place sits an enormous bronze ball. On closer inspection this turns out to be a globe de- picting a single count, Uzbestan, dominating an otheise empty, sea-girt EaCh. The pop- part of his anatomy to remember him by. .-" 0 Ashkhabad / IRAN Central arteries were broadened and straightened. As a synonymous with "exclusively Uzbek neighborhoods." result, the New Town lacks ambiance, to put it mildly. am living at the moment in the heart of the New Town, Soviet urban planners held that human behavior could near the Central Department Store (TsUM) and the co- be modified and improved by a built-up environment lonnaded Opera House. Insofar as the concept of a that reflected the state ideology. They strove for "uni- "fashionable part of town" could co-exist with an ideol- fied and uniform architectural ensembles and thor- ogy of coercive egalitarianism, this was it. The area is not oughfares to accommodate periodic mass, orchestrated so much Russian, in fact, as an enclave for the ex-Soviet public demonstrations" [Great Soviet Encyclopedia, elite. In the quiet streets behind Cosmonauts metro sta- "City Planning"]. It must be admitted that in Tash- tion are the residences of government officials, their kent's New Town they achieved this goal. Consistent friends and hangers-on, Soviet National Artists and at with the ideals of socialist society, there were no provi- least one retired KGB chief. President Karimov's resi- sions made for a central business or commercial dis- dence is hidden behind chestnut trees at the end of the trict, or even a shopping High Street as understood in block. In fact, many non-Russians are moving in as the the West, although the last five years of snail-paced ec- Russians are moving out 20 percent of the Russians in onomic reforms have brought incremental improve- Tashkent have emigrated since Uzbeks declared their ments in this regard. Private shops selling Western sovereignty and grasped the reins of power in 1991.3 In goods, generally chocolates and deodorant, are pop- the building beside mine, an Uzbek police officer has re- ping up, as well as a number of Turkish supermarkets, cently arrived from Ferghana with his family and but their prices are out of reach for all but the richest bought two three-room apartments at $15,000 a piece. citizens.2 The neighborhood gossip is still roiling with specula- tions about the source of such unheard-of riches in the Despite a century of inter-ethnic cohabitation in Tash- pockets of a policeman. kent, the New Town is still approximately referred to as "the Russian section" by Uzbeks, while "Old Town" is My building was originally built as military housing 2. As of March 18, the minimum monthly wage is 400 sum ($8) and monthly pension is 900 sum ($18 at current black market rates). would estimate a minimum subsistence wage for people in Tashkent without access to their own vegetable garden at 2,300 sum ($46). 3. According to the Russian consul in Tashkent, 150 ethnic Russians living in Uzbekistan are granted Russian citizenship daily; 170,00 have taken Russian passports in the last two-three years; three-quarters of a million have left the country since 1991. 2 ASA-14 for top brass and their families. My landlady's father papers kept in stacks under their tables. They buy the was a General, and the stories she recounts of her sheets of paper, which are covered in strange foreign younger years are replete with state-paid trips to sana- symbols they cannot understand, I presume from poor toria, saluting chauffeurs in gleaming leather boots, Uzbek cleaning ladies who are trying to earn a few and tasty delicacies delivered to the door in be- pennies to supplement their income. The papers origi- ribboned baskets. She feels she imbibed the military nate, as the reader will have guessed by now, from the with her mother's milk. Therefore, May 9, the holiday litter bins and scrap-paper piles of foreign firms sit- commemorating the Soviet victory over the Axis, was ting at Turob Tola Street 1. The office managers do not an emotional day for her and her family. As a Captain seem to have cottoned to the fact that a selection of during WWII, her father was detailed to Konigsberg, their confidential documents are available for the East Prussia (later Kaliningrad), where Goering had his price of a handful of raisins down the road. am private villa. He was in charge of the inventory of Goer- amusing myself by building a collection of Arthur An- ing's art treasures and other possessions, and dispatch- dersen internal memoranda from a Davron Rustamku- ing them to Moscow. Not all arrived. Thus it was that lov to a Stephen A. Stophel, for example. White & we celebrated Victory Day at a table set with Goering's Case stationery is generally to be found on the left as best chinaware, and toasted the Red Army with Goer- one enters beside the bread stall.., and so on. If I ing's finest crystal. could care less about the integrity of these firms, and I couldn't, would advise them to invest in a shredder. There are "foreigner" enclaves as well, such as the In the meantime, the word is: economic/industrial es- neighborhood called Hamid Olimjon, where individual pionage is looking pretty easy these days in Tashkent houses boast back gardens and verandas. That particu- for anyone who care to play the game. lar mikroraion houses employees of the BBC monitoring service, UN officials, American businessmen, and staff "Europeans" and "Asiatics" members of a number of diplomatic missions including the Kazakh and Kyrgyz who have their embassies have heard from both Russians and Uzbeks that, there. Wandering that area one afternoon, inadver- since the days of the first Russian settlement, the "Euro- tently discovered that the relative inefficiency of Uzbek peans" and "Asiatics" have tended to live apart. This public services makes it easy, for anyone with a mind proposition may hold true, in general, for the indige- to do so, to get a rough overview of the business of the nous Uzbeks and Tajiks. Not all "Asiatics" behave ac- foreign community by the simple expedient of poking cording to type, however. For instance, there are also through their garbage, which is often left on the street significant numbers of Kazakhs living in Tashkent, but a for all to see anyway, and is rarely collected with any straw poll of my Kazakh acquaintances suggests that promptitude by the city authorities.

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