For many Americans, Uzbekistan has long been misunderstood. It was once a closed republic of the Soviet Union isolated, constrained, and overshadowed by the legacy of communism. But the country I visited is something vastly different. Uzbekistan today is charting a bold new path: expanding its economy, protecting workers, empowering women, and embracing modernization without sacrificing cultural or religious identity.
Dictators like to move people around. Stalin, for instance. From the summer of 1941 through the fall of 1942, with the Russian front facing massive bombardment and Nazi troops on the ground, he decided to relocate civilians, and entire industries, to safer regions in the eastern Soviet Union. The Urals, Siberia, the middle Volga, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan eventually received sixteen million evacuees, perhaps the most ever moved across land by a single directive.
As Golovatyuk states, 'We decided to decline the conventional narrative of preservation and instead intersect it with one of sustainability. The Heliocomplex allowed us to speak about both.'