Courage Monument

Earthquake and rebuilding

At 5.23 am on 26 April 1966 a powerful earthquake struck Tashkent. Its focus lay just 3–8 km below ground, so shaking at the epicentre exceeded intensity 8. Mostly vertical tremors kept many mud-brick houses from collapsing outright, but more than 300,000 people lost their homes. The whole Soviet Union joined the rebuilding: by the end of 1966 housing for 300,000 people had gone up, along with new districts such as the satellite town of Sergeli.

The memorial was unveiled on 20 May 1976 on the site of the epicentre, the work of sculptor Dmitry Ryabichev and architect Sabir Adylov.

The composition

At its heart is a cube of black labradorite split by a crack; one face bears the date, another a clock stopped at 5.23. The fissure runs on to the plinth of a bronze group in which a woman clutches her child while a man shields them, stepping towards the broken ground. Seven paths lead from the plinth to 14 stelae with reliefs of the city's reconstruction. The monument has been state-protected heritage since 2019.