Old postcards Uzbekistan

The Uzbekistan cards fall into two distinct worlds: the medieval ensembles of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, and Soviet Tashkent. The Uzbek SSR was created in 1924; Samarkand remained its capital until 1930, when the capital moved to Tashkent.

Samarkand appears in sets from 1970 and 1989: the Registan with the Ulugh Beg Madrasa (1417–1420), Sher-Dor and Tilla-Kari, the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum where Timur is buried, the Shah-i-Zinda ensemble, the Bibi-Khanym and Hazrat-Khizr mosques, and the Ulugh Beg monument. Bukhara in 1989 means the Kalyan minaret, the Samanid mausoleum and the Khoja Nasreddin monument; Khiva in 1971 shows the Pahlavan Mahmud mausoleum and the Muhammad Amin Khan madrasa with the Kalta Minor minaret.

The 1960 Tashkent cards record the city before the earthquake of 26 April 1966, after which much of it was rebuilt: the Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre, Navoi Street, Frunze Square, the Rodina cinema, Pakhtakor stadium and the Komsomol lake in the park of culture. Later Tashkent is represented by the Lenin monument on a 1986 card.

For architectural historians these Soviet postcards of Uzbekistan document squares and monuments as they looked in a given year. All images are scans of genuine cards, and the section grows with each batch of newly digitised material.