Yangiobod

A mountain town north of Angren, built in the 1950s for uranium miners, with low German-style houses and streets that are now almost empty.

Soviet era1950-yillar2 h1 min read

Photo: Галиев Ярослав · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Past and present

Yangiobod lies on the south-east slope of the Chatkal Range where the Dukentsay and Kattasay meet, at about 1,300 m. It was built in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a closed settlement for workers at nearby uranium mines, with strictly limited access. Much of it was built by ethnic Germans resettled from the Volga region, and its houses, none higher than three storeys, recall a small German town of the last century.

The mines closed in the 1980s as the deposits ran out. In 1989 the town had 11,709 inhabitants; today only a few hundred remain. Angren railway station is 22 km away, with buses and minibuses between the two.