Tashkent has by far the most far-out (farthest-out?) examples of Soviet architecture I’ve seen so far on this trip. I don’t know the reason for this, but this is my totally speculative theory: Much of the city was destroyed in a 1966 earthquake and reconstructed afterwards. These were among the best times for the Soviet Union and so there was probably relatively more money to devote to the reconstruction and also a bit of national swagger that encouraged them to take some architectural risks.
Secondly, Uzbekistan was the beneficiary of one of the most remarkable swindles in history, in which the Uzbek leadership in this period massively falsified cotton records in their reports to the Kremlin and thus got revenues from the central government in amounts much greater than it should have, and presumably some of this is reflected in the ambitious architecture.
Thirdly, it was the late 60s.
Here is the Hotel Uzbekistan, smack in the middle of the city:
This is the Tashkent Institute for Irrigation and Mechanization:
Uzbek Telecom:
The Palace of People's Friendship, where people apparently like to get their photos taken:
The Museum of the History of the Peoples of Uzbekistan. This one devotes a lot of space to post-Soviet Uzbekistan, with lots of interesting stuff that may be worth its own blog entry... The building itself, by the way, is on Sharof Rashidov street, a major artery in Tashkent that is named after the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR, who perpetrated the fraud mentioned above, and who is now a sort of hero in modern Uzbekistan:
Don't know what this is, but I like it:
The residential architecture, too, is pretty ambitious. There are very few of the standard Soviet apartment blocks here. The blocks, of course, are pretty much the same but they're all adorned with some sort of decoration. Often it's cotton-themed:
Lots of quasi-Islamic concrete sun shades in front of the windows:
And some cool murals on the sides of buildings. This is a relatively weak example, there are some really elaborate ones, but I don't have any photos:
Finally, an example of the new sort of architecture the government seems to like. It really looks like a direct descendant of Soviet public architecture, the kind of thing that says "If you even try to mess with us we will crush you." The new version incorporates the tinted reflective windows that are a common feature of most new architecture across the Caucasus and Central Asia, which is generally built using Turkish construction materials and techniques. These windows may be Turkey's least worthwhile contribution to the modern world. This is the Cabinet of Ministers building:
UPDATE: Someone emailed me about this and I accidentally deleted it -- write again and I promise I won't delete it this time...
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