The Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan issued a resolution on March 25, including around 157 mosaic panels in Tashkent and regions of the country in the National list of immovable cultural heritage objects as monuments of monumental art. Previously, in August 2023, the scientific and expert council of the Cultural Heritage Agency approved a list of 161 mosaics and panels for inclusion in the national list.
The aim of expanding the registry in the resolution is to comprehensively study, preserve, and properly use mosaics, panels, and works of visual art, as well as to enhance their role in developing the country's tourism potential. The mosaics included in the list will be entered into the state cadastre. From now on, any activities on buildings, within their protected zones, and on adjacent territories must be coordinated with the Cultural Heritage Agency.
Most of the mosaics included in the list are from Tashkent, with mosaics also from Nukus, Urgench, Khiva, Samarkand, Namangan, Andijan, Jizzakh, Kokand, Angren, Gulistan, and several districts. The public and individual activists have been fighting for years to preserve the mosaics on buildings. In recent years, many mosaics on residential buildings in Tashkent were painted over during renovation works, with some covered by huge advertising banners.
In 2022, residents' outrage halted the painting over of mosaics on several buildings near the capital's administration building. Workers had already covered large areas of nine-story buildings with cement, which had to be manually cleaned. The Chilanzar district administration then stated that the decision to "repair facades" of the buildings was made by the city council of deputies.
In September of last year, as part of the demolition works of the newspaper printing house building in central Tashkent, a mosaic panel by Arnold Gana was dismantled to be relocated. The campaign for its preservation was led by the founder of the Tashkent Modernism project, Alexander Fyodorov. The Uzbekistan Culture and Arts Development Fund announced an open competition to determine the new location for the mosaic.
In 2020, "Gazeta.uz" published an article by tour guide Aziz Khalmuradov on the toponymy of Tashkent, which included a discussion on the unique mosaic panels of the capital, some of which have not been preserved.
