Amir Timur Square, Tashkent

The square was laid out in 1882 by the Russian administration, at the centre of the new European town built east of the old city after the conquest of Tashkent in 1865. It was a park at the meeting of radial avenues, the tsarist answer to the bazaar of the old town.

Its central monument has changed with each era:

• Under the Russian Empire, a statue of General Konstantin von Kaufman, the first governor-general of Turkestan.
• After the revolution, a monument to the revolution, then a bust of Lenin and a statue of Stalin.
• From 1968, a monument to Karl Marx.
• Since 1993, after independence, the bronze statue of Amir Timur on horseback, his hand raised in greeting, with the motto attributed to him: “Strength is in justice.”

The sequence tells the story of Uzbekistan’s 19th and 20th centuries in one place. Timur, once presented in Soviet history as a cruel conqueror, became after independence the national hero and symbol of Uzbek statehood.

• The Chimes (Kuranty): a clock tower built in 1947, according to tradition partly by Japanese prisoners of war, a symbol of the city. A second tower was added later.
• Hotel Uzbekistan: a 17-storey hotel from 1974, with a curved facade covered in a concrete lattice of Islamic-style patterns, one of the most striking buildings of Soviet modernism in Central Asia.
• The Palace of Forums (Congress Hall): a large white building with a golden dome, built in 2009 for official events.
• The Amir Timur Museum: a round building with a blue dome, opened in 1996, telling the story of Timur and his dynasty.
• The Law Institute, a red-brick building from the tsarist period, one of the few surviving 19th-century buildings in the area.

The square is also the starting point of Broadway (Sayilgoh Street), a pedestrian street with cafés, artists and souvenir stalls, leading west towards Independence Square.

The square was once shaded by old plane trees, some over a century old. In 2009 most of them were cut down during a redevelopment, which caused much sadness among residents. New trees have been planted, and the park is green again, with fountains and benches where families stroll in the evening.

Amir Timur Square is the best place to understand the two halves of Tashkent. After the Russian conquest of 1865, the new administration did not rebuild the old Muslim city; it laid out a separate European town to the east, with straight, tree-lined avenues radiating from this square, government buildings, churches, a theatre and villas. The old city, with its bazaar, mahallas and madrasahs, remained to the west around Chorsu.

After the 1966 earthquake, both halves were rebuilt as a Soviet capital, but the plan of the tsarist town, with this square at its heart, still shapes the centre. Walking west from the square towards the old town, you move from the 19th-century grid to the winding lanes of a much older city.

For most of the Soviet period, Timur was officially portrayed as a ruthless conqueror, and his memory was treated with caution. After independence in 1991, he was rehabilitated as the founder of a great state and a patron of science and the arts, and his image spread across the country: statues in Tashkent, Samarkand and his birthplace Shakhrisabz, a museum, banknotes and school textbooks. The statue in this square is the most prominent sign of that change. To see the monuments Timur himself built, travel to Samarkand, where his tomb, the Gur-Emir, stands.

Location: in the centre of modern Tashkent.

Metro: Amir Temur Hiyoboni station, an interchange between two lines, right under the square. See the Tashkent metro.

Tickets: the square is free.

Time needed: 30 minutes to 1 hour, more with the museum and Broadway.

Best time: the evening, when the fountains and buildings are lit and the square fills with people.

Combine with: Broadway, Independence Square, the State Museum of History and the Museum of Applied Arts.