Courage Monument

Shortly before half past five in the morning on 26 April 1966, an earthquake struck directly beneath central Tashkent. The number of deaths was relatively low for a disaster of its kind, but the shocks went on for months, and tens of thousands of homes, most of them old mud-brick houses of the old town, were destroyed or damaged. Hundreds of thousands of people were left homeless. The rebuilding that followed, with builders from every Soviet republic, created the modern city of wide avenues and modernist buildings you see today.

The Courage Monument, unveiled on the tenth anniversary in 1976, marks the epicentre. Its centrepiece is a cube of dark stone split by a deep crack. One face bears the date of the earthquake, and the other a clock face whose hands are stopped at 5:24, the moment the city remembers. Facing it, a bronze man stands with his chest bared to the shock, shielding a woman and a child behind him. The sculptor was Dmitry Ryabichev.

Reading the memorial

Around the main group, reliefs on the surrounding walls show the reconstruction: the volunteers, builders and soldiers who came to rebuild the city. It is a Soviet monument and tells a Soviet story of solidarity, but the feeling is genuine. Many families in Tashkent have their own memories of the tents, the aftershocks and the new flats that followed, and older residents still date events as before or after the earthquake.

Visiting

The memorial stands on a landscaped terrace beside the Ankhor canal, at the junction of Sharof Rashidov and Abdulla Qodiriy streets. It is open at all times and free. A short visit of 15 to 20 minutes is enough; pair it with the Minor Mosque, a little further along the canal, or with the nearby Amir Timur Square. Newly married couples often come here to lay flowers, so you may find a wedding party in the morning or late afternoon.