Tashkent Residents Forced From Homes

Homes are being demolished and their residents forced out for an urban redevelopment scheme in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.

Bulldozers moved in on January 18 and started destroying private homes along the city’s inner ringroad, close to the Northern Railway Station. Residents came out when they heard the rumble of heavy machinery.

“My mother was at home, and people from the local government arrived and told her to immediately vacate the house… as it was going to be destroyed,” a local man whose home was one of the first to be flattened said. “No one had given us any prior warning of the demolition.”

The authorities have not commented on the demolition process, although a source in the Mirabad district government said Prime Minister Shovkat Mirziyoev had issued instructions for all homes within ten metres of the ringroad to come down.

Demolitions in the name of redevelopment have been going on in Uzbekistan for several years. In October 2009, for example, the authorities took down private homes to clear sites for new high-rise buildings in parts of Tashkent. In spring 2008, apartment owners were evicted from a block scheduled for demolition to build a conference centre in the city centre. 

People evicted in these earlier cases say the housing they were offered as compensation was inadequate, but many accepted nevertheless as they had no other alternative.

On the opposite side of the city, residents of an old neighbourhood have been notified that their homes will be bulldozered within the next month. As compensation, they are being offered 600-square-metre plots in the Sergeli area and two million soms in cash, with 1,200 US dollars.

“That money isn’t enough to put up a single brick wall,” a local resident said.

Vladimir Husainov, a human rights activist in Tashkent, believes residents can successfully defend their rights. He said one owner had successfully applied to various agencies and eventually received a three-room apartment of equivalent value.

“They will succeed if they fight,” Husainov says.

A construction industry insider who has experience of demolition programmes advises homeowners to demand all the documentation relating to their case from the local authorities.

“Once you have them, you can easily go to court and claim compensation,” he said.

However, this will be a problem for many of those affected by the latest demolitions, as the authorities say there is no documentation relating to their homes.

“The deputy head of the district, Akbar Yunusov, told us our houses had ceased to exist on paper a long time ago,” one resident said. “The documents say they were demolished in 2004.” 

This article was produced as part of IWPR's News Briefing Central Asia output, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.