Old photos · Uzbekistan
Old photos of Tashkent
It begins in 1865, the year Russian troops took the city, but much of it is the Tashkent rebuilt after the earthquake of 1966: the 1970s and 1980s are its two busiest decades.
Time Portal's archive holds about 9,000 photographs of Tashkent (Toshkent), taken between 1865 and 2000, each pinned to the spot where the photographer stood. 70% of them date from 1955 or later and are free to browse at map.timeportal.app with no account; the older ones open with Pro. The oldest, dated 1865 in the archive, shows a Russian log hut by the road out of the city towards Orenburg — a photograph from the Turkestan Album.
- Photographs
- 9,000
- Oldest
- 1865
- Busiest decade
- 1980s
- Free, 1955 on
- 70%
How many photographs, decade by decade
The busiest decades for Tashkent are the 1980s and the 1970s — 2,010 and 1,883 photographs. 362 were taken before 1900. Everything from 1955 onward is free to open on the map; the older photographs are part of Pro.
| Decade | Relative size | Photographs |
|---|---|---|
| before 1860 | 0 | |
| 1860s | 23 | |
| 1870s | 8 | |
| 1880s | 67 | |
| 1890s | 264 | |
| 1900s | 366 | |
| 1910s | 335 | |
| 1920s | 408 | |
| 1930s | 610 | |
| 1940s | 303 | |
| 1950s | 894 | |
| 1960s | 1,283 | |
| 1970s | 1,883 | |
| 1980s | 2,010 | |
| 1990s | 530 |
Where the photographs were taken
Counted in a small square around each place — about 250 metres each way — so a number is every photograph taken there, of the place itself or of the street beside it. Each place opens the map on that spot.
| Place | Photos | Oldest |
|---|---|---|
| Amir Timur Square | 425 | 1882–1883 |
| Independence Square | 756 | 1933 |
| Chorsu and the old city | 403 | 1866 |
| The Navoi Theatre | 343 | 1940 |
| The railway station | 138 | 1897–1898 |
| Khast Imam | 256 | 1885–1886 |
What changed
Russian troops took Tashkent in June 1865, and beside the old city of mud-brick houses, mosques and bazaars they laid out a new one of straight, tree-lined avenues around a central square. The square has changed its name and its monument with each regime: Konstantinovsky Square, then Revolution Square, and since 1994 Amir Timur Square.
On 26 April 1966 an earthquake destroyed much of the centre, and the city was rebuilt by builders from across the Soviet Union; the two busiest decades in the archive, the 1970s and 1980s, are of the city they built.
Questions about old photos of Tashkent
Where can I see old photos of Tashkent on a map?
On Time Portal: about 9,000 photographs of Tashkent, each pinned where it was taken, most with the direction the camera faced. The map is free in any browser at map.timeportal.app — photographs from 1955 on need no account — and there is an app for iPhone and iPad.
What is the oldest photograph of Tashkent in the archive?
The oldest precisely dated photograph, from 1865, shows a Russian log hut by the road out of the city towards Orenburg — a photograph from the Turkestan Album. 362 of the Tashkent photographs were taken before 1900.
Which years of Tashkent are best covered?
The 1980s, with 2,010 photographs, and the 1970s, with 1,883. 70% of the Tashkent photographs date from 1955 or later.
Open Tashkent on the map
Other cities: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kyiv, New York, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Nizhny Novgorod, Prague, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Stockholm, Vyborg, Kaliningrad, Tbilisi, Odesa, Samarkand, Riga, Rome, Minsk, London, Volgograd, Tallinn. Or search any address on the map, or in the app.
The counts on this page are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 — credit Time Portal and link here. The photographs are not ours to license: they belong to their photographers and the archives that keep them.