Peer Inside Tashkent’s Art-Filled (and Long-Shrouded) Subway

Fabulous photo essay. A friend and I went to Uzbekistan in mid-September and she got our guide to take us down to the subway and ride to see some of the more special stations. I particularly liked the one with the astronauts. Of course that was the Soviet's doing, not the Uzbeks. But still.... And I guess things have changed a lot since the days when police were frisking people in the metro. Didn't see any. By the way, our fast train from Tashkent to Samarkand was the equal of any I've seen in Europe and the service is business class was superb. (P.S. In Tashkent, one MUST go to the Plov Center to eat the national dish along with hundreds of others. A great experience.

I hope officials at the MTA are seeing this. Public transportation in the US continues to be a travesty.

Thank you, NYT! In 1987, I was lucky enough to be part of an early, if not the first Seattle-Tashkent Sister City exchange. Students and teachers traveled to Moscow, Tashkent, Samarkand and Leningrad. It was an immersive crash course in critical thinking for a 13 year old me (not to mention the privileges of US citizenship, responsibilities of representing your country, religious persecution, freedom of speech, etc.). Nothing we’d been taught in those Cold War days about the USSR made sense when I was face-to-face breaking bread (or eating plov) with the warmest, most welcoming new friends who stared back at this Japanese American with their Central Asian faces. (Remember, everyone was Soviet...) It was then that I really understood you can’t believe everything you read, see on the news, are told by adults, etc., especially about the identity and humanity of an entire people. I have carried the extraordinary beauty of the people and the place in my heart ever since. I still recall walking down the stairs of one of the subway stations pictured here and losing my breath in the face of such beauty. After so very many years, it was pure joy to see these lovely photos and relieve this all again.

I really thank NYT for shattering the misconceptions about Uzbekistan. I am from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. When I mention about my country, lot of people get confused it with either Afganistan or Pakistan and immediately ask me whether it is a safe place to go. I can't describe how peaceful my country is, let alone its beauty, magnificence, richness in history and utmost hospitality. I think Uzbekistan should be in your top list to go for a trip.

Beautiful ! What impresses me the most on these pictures is that virtually no one - as far as I can tell - has their eyes locked to their smartphone.

Some enterprising academic should write a thesis exploring why the Soviets chose subway stations to be such lavish cultural showcases. Perhaps they felt they were safe places to allow decadent un-proletarian impulses free reign unseen by their western critics. Maybe they expected a nuclear shootout and wanted to claim that their loyal survivors were carrying on the struggle in proper style. It was curious to note that the quality of workmanship invested into the subway stations was vastly superior to anything contemporaneous built above ground. The Moscow subway was originally adorned with massive murals devoted to socialist realism scenes of revolutionary heroism. I remember descending the long escalator into a station in 1961 and encountering on the wall a row of leaders where a few recently defrocked Stalinists like Beria had been recently painted over. Like ghosts they were barely visible beneath the coat of hastily applied whitewash.

It's so sad to compare the New York subway system to the photographs in Tashkent's subway. Then again when you look at how our current president behaves it all makes perfect sense.

Mostly hidden to the outside world ? To the US., yes Russians have always known about it If in Tashkent , take an excursion to Bukhara - Uzbekistan's most beautiful city.

Just got back from Uzbekistan; a place with unexpected beauty and welcoming people.

20 years ago I was a Peace Corps volunteer living in Tashkent. I was angry and thinking evil thoughts about one of my cohort and promptly tumbled down the stairs depicted in the photograph. I think of this at least once a day when I need to be humbled or inwardly chastised for some random volatile hatred. Youth is hard.

Reminds me of of the Moscow metro. Very clean and with a grand sense of civic art and beauty. It is also not as lively or democratic as New York or Paris.

Wow! So amazingly beautiful.

This is why I love The New York Times.

Knee jerk anti-communism will pickle your brain. When you see public art celebrating Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, as evidence of the supposedly sinister grip of "Soviet ideology" you have lost your grip on reality. It may be inconvenient to the self-image of the United States that Gagarin and Tereshkova did what they did, but their achievements should be honored and celebrated by everyone on earth. Likewise it is ridiculous that Tashkent has such a clean, beautiful and apparently efficient subway system when so many major American cities have none at all. And it is another reminder that the cartoon portrayal of the Soviet Union that so many Americans have imbibed is just that. The USSR was a complex and contradictory society and there is much for which it can rightly be criticized. But it also accomplished amazing things and gave the masses of working class people a measure of dignity and respect that for a time they enjoyed nowhere else on earth.

Danielle Villasana = a very good photographer!

I went to Uzbekistan last autumn and while taking photos at Abdullah Kodiriy station was approached by two pretty aggressive police who demanded that I stop. I guess they didn't get the memo. Everywhere else, no problem.

Thanks for the photos. I would have never known or suspected such a subway system in Uzbekistan. So happy to have stopped and read this article.

I actually visited Tashkent in the late 90s and still remember some of the artwork pictured here, I lived near the Pakhtakor station (which I remembered by pronouncing it "Park the car" in a Boston accent). I still have the plastic tokens they used back then. The main thing I remember was being stopped by the security services almost every ride asking for my documents. They always waved me by once they saw my passport and visa, but I could see this was a huge problem for the locals.

Beautiful subway and city. Uzbekistan is a beautiful country.

This definitely looks more like a developed country’s subway than that of NYC, SF, Chicago, or even DC. I think it is time to be more precise when it comes to nomenclature and classification: a rich and/or industrialized country ≠ developed, advanced, civilized country

Beautiful photos. I know they did not allow photos a few years back. I was there under the old regime and there were lots of restrictions on taking photos. Two things: May be now, there are no police guarding these stations. In those years - police were everywhere frisking folks. As a matter of fact - even the underground passageways had police frisking one other end. In those days,they had no ATM So, I was carrying a bundle of cash to buy me a train ticket to Samarkand. My cash was in a brown paper bag - and I was really concerned I would be stopped. The other thing is absence of a photo with the train conductor who stands on the platform - always at attention - with paddle in hand. The paddle has green and red sign And this conductor flips around the battle after ensuring all passengers off and have boarded - she flashes green to train driver. And the train departs. Finally, Azerbaijan also has good subway systems but it's stations are not so pretty - they are more utilitarian.

The subway system in the USSR was a focal point of pride, the "face of the city" as it was called by those who used blood, sweat and tears of those under them to build these masterpieces. The goal was to show-off, to put up a beautiful front in order to hide the problems plaguing the nation.

I used to commute by the Tashkent metro every day in the late ‘90s and with photography forbidden, it was so frustrating not to be able to share it with people back home in the US. Went as a tourist in January this year and was so excited to finally take photos! Just as clean and sophisticated as this article shows.

I never knew something like this existed. This is amazing! Thank you for sharing a part of the world I've never seen

This is obviously fake news. No subway could be this clean.

So much beauty, culture, and cleanliness. Amazing! Absolutely no graffiti or pushy people trying to sell tamales or trinkets. If only the NY subway system could emulate this and clean its act up.

Wow is there a single US subway station that comes close is beauty to even the worst of these stations?

Compare this subway that looks like a museum with magnificent artwork, and any NYC subway full of dirt, trash, rats, and corporate advertising. We must admit that Russia has done some things much better than the USA. America has more pride in money, and military, than anything else.

More attractive than New York's subway station or the tube of London. These photos certainly break's the stereotype about government-funded art in the Soviet Union. But then again women in the former Soviet Union turned out to be more attractive than I had been led to believe by Cold War propaganda as well.

Wow, looks like the R line..... NOT!

Wonderful photos and article! One photo reminded me of the Hudson Yards Station.