by My visit to Uzbekistan began with a near death – mine. I had just clambered up and down the steps of a giant 20-story-high mirror. The whole structure clanked and creaked with every step and buzzed with the noise of the welders, none of them wearing safety equipment, all of them wanting some kind of high repair, ciggies streaking from lips, hardened by the abandoned life in a former republic -Soviet.
That a piece of the Sun Heliocomplex, one of the most surreal science sights of the USSR, had fallen apart and I looked strange matching the experience. It was the views from the top that felt incongruous – a syrupy panorama of Mt Kyzyl Zura and the auburn peaks of Uzbekistan bending off in the distance towards the border with Kyrgyzstan. And were those eagles soaring in the cloudless sky?
Since the early 1980s, the once-secret complex was a Soviet idea aimed at harnessing the sun’s awesome power to heat alloys for scientific research. The huge mirror reflects light from a few dozen smaller mirrors arranged up a parallel hillside, focusing intense heat onto a chunk of metal. Its location, 20 miles northeast of Tashkent in the golden foothills above the small town of Parkent, was chosen because it is one of the sunniest places in the world – an ideal choice for the world’s largest solar furnace.
For me, it was a great place to start my exploration of the Communist war-time relics in and around the Uzbek capital, now being promoted as part of the Tashkent Modernism program (tashkentmodernism.uz) – a strange, dystopian lens through which to view surrealism. the former power of the USSR.
The delightful head of the project – his head, like many others, a traditional Uzbek “doppa” cap – handed me a piece of a Russian space rocket made there and led me outside, where a kettle was placed next to a man. a miniature version of the huge furnace, the heat of the sun sings and the water boils. Inside the main building, there were unusual artworks full of nerdy explanatory posters. Around the back, Chernobyl-esque careless decay – fueled by bureaucratic prudishness coupled with the dwindling cash – seemed to have set in, with bits and pieces strewn about and a safety hat doing as we climb.
My tour now complete, I headed back to Tashkent – passing donkeys pulling carts and roadside fruit sellers pulling faces as they wandered a rainbow of exotic produce. Soon enough, we were in the main square of the city, passing by the Hotel Uzbekistan. I pondered the irony of these concrete hotels being so popular with the Western cognoscenti when they have fallen so much out of favor in their homeland. How modern hipster hotels thrive inside bare concrete, and how the interiors of these mid-century relics are always dripping with scuffed chintz.
The bar at the top of the hotel was completely empty; an abandoned countertop standing ready to dispense vodka martinis to anyone. It was like a scene from a JG Ballard book High rise. Through the window, the modernist core of the “New Tashkent” was laid out, like a model on the desk of a Soviet planner in 1950s Moscow. From the window, you could see all the way to the huge domed blue dome of the National Circus, built in 1976 as another example of what life calls “Soviet cosmic architecture”.
I took the metro, which also emerged during this era, from the wild Cosmonauts Station, its blue and gray walls plastered with homages to astronauts. My eyes were drawn with relief by Valentina Tereshkova – the first woman in space. The train clanked a few stops and I appeared at the Panorama Cinema. There was a small exhibition about Uzbek film making in the foyer, with full-scale miniatures and cars and posters. On the main stage, I turned to see a rack of red seats laid out ready to watch a 1970s movie.
Outside the State Art Museum I saw something that brought it home: a drum-shaped tower – a dead ringer for the Rotunda in Birmingham, a city I once called home. In many ways, there are similarities between these two cities, the two cities that were so comprehensively rebuilt in the 1960s. But, unlike its British counterpart, there is something austere about Tashkent, where – instead of putting it down and starting over – this strange and wonderful cityscape is appreciated for what it is. As the number of mid-century millennial interns increases, perhaps more places should take notice, and promote these weirdest design destinations for the surreal, fantastical relics they really are. .
Fundamentals
Christopher Beanland was a guest at Tashkent Modernism.
Tours of the Sun Heliocomplex cost from 10,000 Uzbekistani Som (63p) for an hour, and can be booked at imssolar.uz.
Sapiens (00 998 71 203 33 35) is the most fashionable hotel in Tashkent, with a dark palette in its small but perfect rooms and a bar, club and restaurant on the roof. Doubles from £47 per night.
Uzbekistan Airlines flies from London to Tashkent from £268 return.
