By Calum MacLeod

Busted, just for being a curious tourist. I knew I shouldn’t, but Tashkent’s stunning Soviet subway cried out for one sneaky shot back in 1994.

I thought I got away with it too, until a soldier under a menacingly large hat marched me and my camera to his booth, to pay a fine/bribe from my heavy brick of som - Uzbekistan’s new, post-rouble currency.

Until 2018, guards like him enforced a photography ban due to the metro’s designation as a nuclear shelter.

Today, snap and dawdle as you please to enjoy the individually themed, story-telling stations, decorative marvels of marble, metal, granite, glass, plastic, ceramics and carved alabaster.

Exploring the Tashkent metro is a highlight of any Koryo Tours trip to Uzbekistan. My sister and I once manhandled my mother’s wheelchair into the gorgeous but lift-free metro.

A station guard rushed over, not to stop me filming, but to assist my 82-year-old mum down the long, retro escalator.

His help typified the kindness and hospitality we received throughout a land opening up after decades of isolation. The reformist President calls it “New Uzbekistan”, although plenty of the old ways persist.

No longer demolishing Soviet cultural heritage, the Uzbek capital now celebrates its monumentalist buildings and mosaics as Tashkent Modernism.

Tashkent Metro. Photo credit: Calum MacLeod

Going underground

As Moscow’s “beacon of socialism in the East”, rebuilt after the 1966 earthquake, Tashkent remains an architectural treasure trove, home to striking 20th century buildings that mean Tashkent rivals Helsinki and Bilbao as a great place to enjoy modernist architecture.

Tashkent’s citizens are rightly proud of their surprisingly opulent metro, Central Asia’s first.

Planning started in the earthquake’s wake, construction began in 1972 and five years later the first trains rolled, packed with residents excited to view the first few stations. 

There have been multiple name changes since independence in 1991 (October Revolution station became Amir Temur), and some Soviet-era reliefs have been removed or amended, but it remains a must-see, the most convenient way to traverse the city, and a cool escape from melting avenues.

Cotton is a common motif, from the mosaics of Paxtakor (cotton grower) station to the boll lamps of O’zbekiston.

Cotton boll lamps at O’zbekiston station. Photo credit: Calum MacLeod

Named after the famous Uzbek writer and musician respectively, Qodiry and Yunus Rajabiy also feature ornate lighting designs.

Kosmonavtlar offers ceramic discs of cosmonauts floating in a spectral sea.

Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space, at Kosmonavtlar station. Photo credit: Calum MacLeod

Spot Yuri Garagin and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space (1963), then head above ground to see the statue of Vladimir Dzhanibekov, the Uzbek-Russian cosmonaut who spent almost five months in orbit in the 1980s.

The newer lines bring even more of the city within reach but lack such magic. The metro runs from 5am to midnight, and the flat fare system still operates, although the distinctive blue tokens have been replaced by paper tickets with QR codes. Tickets are slightly more expensive for cash ($0.25), so use a bank card or buy an ATTO transport card.

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