Soviet Town Centre

Navoi's town centre is a textbook Soviet urban plan dropped into the Uzbek desert. Wide boulevards lined with plane trees, rectangular apartment blocks in pale stucco, a central park with geometric paths and a concrete fountain: the aesthetic is pure 1960s Soviet modernism, and it has been preserved better here than in many cities that have since torn it down or covered it with glass towers.

Walking the main avenue, Navoi Prospekt, takes you past the regional administration building (a monumental Soviet palazzo), the central park, and the cultural centre that served the city's largely Russian population in its industrial heyday. The city's grid is strict and rational — you can navigate entirely by right angles. It is not picturesque, but for anyone interested in Soviet planning or the Central Asian Soviet experience, it is a genuine relic.

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A story
Navoi was one of the few Soviet cities in Uzbekistan administered directly from Moscow rather than Tashkent. This meant it received goods — consumer products, foodstuffs, appliances — that were unavailable anywhere else in Central Asia. Long after independence, older residents remember it as a place of peculiar privilege in the middle of the steppe.