In March last year, Uzbekistan’s Cabinet of Ministers added 157 mosaic panels across Uzbekistan to the National List of Tangible Cultural Heritage Objects. Most of them are located in the capital city of Tashkent, but there are some in other regions like Samarkand, Khiva, Nukus and others.
The resolution sets out several goals: to study the mosaics and panels in depth, ensure their preservation, promote their proper use and strengthen their role in developing the nation’s tourism potential.
But 157 mosaics are a fraction of the original number, as Tashkent itself is currently home to at least 486 such panels. And activists are not the only people supporting preservation of these objects of national heritage. The Tashkent city council together with Art and Culture Development Foundation commissioned a website named «Tashkent Mosaics“.
This article has collected mosaics marked as objects of Tangible Cultural Heritage on the website, with information on their authors, context and locations.
The Zharski Brothers and Tashkent’s mosaic style
After the 1966 earthquake, builders and artists from across the Soviet Union came to rebuild Tashkent. Among them were the Zharski brothers: Pyotr, Nikolai and Alexander who were artists from a family of White emigrants.
Working at a concrete plant, they began designing mosaics for new buildings. At first, approval was hard to get, but a meeting with architect Yuri Miroshnichenko changed that.
“He showed me a sketch for a nine-storey house. It was so beautiful I couldn’t refuse,» Miroshnichenko later said.
The brothers’ mosaics soon defined the look of the rebuilt city, appearing on facades, in metro halls and on fountains. Most of the compositions across the city are signed under their names.
Pyotr, trained in Toulouse, focused on natural figures and emotion:
Nikolai preferred clear, detailed landscapes. Here are some of his works:
Alexander experimented with form and colour, creating many well-known mosaics across the city:
Their works were carefully matched to each site and also helped insulate buildings from heat and moisture.
Other notable architects
Zharski brothers aside, there are other artists whose panels are on the National List of Tangible Cultural Heritage Objects.
One notable artist was Gan Arnold Pavlovich, whose works are known to everyone who has ever lived and been to Tashkent. Most notable of his works in the «Kosmonavtlar» station on the Tashkent metro line. It is one of the most memorable stations in the Uzbek subway system. However, not all of his mosaic panels are preserved. Here are two of them, that still stand tall on the capital.
Another notable artist is Ablin Evgeny Mikhailovich, whose most famous work is the mosaic panel on the facade of the Tashkent television centre.
Bukharbaev Abdumalik Abdukadyrovich is another author of recognisable murals on the «Novza» metro station of Chilanzar line and «Uzbekistan» station of Tashkent line. The ceramic and marble panels on the first floor of the Tashkent TV Tower also bear his sign.
Two bright mosaic panels made of smalt are placed on the sides of a building located in Yakkasaray district on the third passage of Urikzar street. The main parts of both compositions are raised in relief.
The first panel, Bayram («Celebration»), features three doira drums and three karnay trumpets joined within a central circle.
The second panel, Asia, shows in its upper part the profile of a woman, a portrait of the artist Vladimir Drygin’s wife, enclosed in a raised circle that divides the panel into two sections. The lower part imitates a floral pattern, while the upper one is more abstract.
Last one on the list with a known author is the panel on the School №110, constructed in 1969 by Ukrainian builders and designed by Ukrainian architect I. Yu. Karakis. The school was built for 2,600 pupils and included a swimming pool. On one of its walls is a large mosaic by artist Vladimir Sergeyevich Kutkin depicting Taras Shevchenko holding a kobza.
The panel was inspired by Shevchenko’s main work, Kobzar. Filled with drama, it portrays the journey of the Ukrainian people from oppression to freedom, with the poet himself as the central figure.
Unknown authors
The authors of the last two compositions on the list are yet unknown, but they also have their own unique features that draw attention and are included on the heritage list.
Scattered across the city, these ceramic mosaics turn ordinary walls into landmarks of memory. They connect the Tashkent of today with the optimism of the past, reminding travellers that heritage can live in plain sight, glowing quietly under the Central Asian sun.
