oldtashkent.com

Basic Site Mission

oldtashkent.com is a themed history website maintained by an independent hobbyist historian. It focuses primarily on the modern urban history of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, with particular emphasis on the development of the city between 1865 and 1917, when Tashkent was part of the Russian Empire. It also hosts supplementary resources on Soviet-era Tashkent urban architecture that is gradually disappearing, comprehensively documenting the development of this famous Central Asian city across two key historical periods.

Core Content & Accessibility

The site's content is divided into three main sections:

• Themed research on Tashkent's urban history during the Russian Imperial period, covering a wide range of topics including administration, urban construction, education, healthcare, religion, and commerce;
• An image gallery that hosts a large number of rare primary sources including vintage photographs, postcards, and the original 1870 city map of Tashkent — many of these materials are published online for the first time here;
• A final section for original research, biographies, and curated street view and visual records of Soviet-era Tashkent.

All content is completely free to access, and it can be visited directly from Chinese networks with no VPN required.

Pros, Cons & Target Audience

Its advantages are very clear: as a niche local history site, it preserves a huge amount of primary source material that is difficult to find elsewhere online, filling a major gap in digital resources on Tashkent's modern history. It has no commercial advertising whatsoever, and its content is focused and rigorously researched.

Its drawbacks are also obvious: the entire site only supports Russian, creating a high barrier for Chinese and English-speaking users. Its page design is very basic, with lots of redundant navigation and clunky layout, leading to a mediocre user experience. Since it relies on one person for all updates, new content is posted on an inconsistent schedule.

This site is perfect for researchers of modern Central Asian history and Tashkent urban history enthusiasts looking to access primary source materials. Casual tourists who want to learn background information about Tashkent will find it very hard to use due to the language barrier.