Creative Tashkent: the people and places modernising cultural heritage

Tashkent is changing. Some of its transformations are exciting: new initiatives, such as independent galleries and poetic duels, animate the life of the city, galvanising its creative community. Other changes, however, are troubling: the city is losing much of its cultural heritage, as entire mahallas are bulldozed, and replaced with high rises. This is not the first time the city is radically altered: in his Letter from Tashkent, writer-in-exile Hamid Ismailov recalls the post-war Uzbek capital city’s many faces, few of which he still recognises.