Abstract:

The recent ongoing urban transformation of Dushanbe, in which most of its Soviet-era architecture and spaces are rapidly demolished to be replaced by state- and privately-built urban infrastructure, has produced debates and discussions around the symbolic significance of these material changes. In this study, which analyses in-person interviews conducted with Dushanbe residents, activists, urban planners, architects and developers, I unpack the meanings and discourses around this transformation and situate them in Tajikistan’s Soviet history and contemporary context. In this paper, I specifically focus on decolonization as one of the driving rationales behind the changing urban environment of Dushanbe. But just because Soviet-era architecture is being demolished, does it mean that Dushanbe is undergoing a process of decolonization? This paper positions decolonization as the central question in the context of the ongoing urban transformation of Dushanbe and outlines both the potential and limitations of this approach.

The interviews demonstrate that the ongoing rebuilding of Dushanbe can be seen as a direct response to Dushanbe’s 20th-century Soviet history, in which the city was predominantly designed and constructed by Russian (specifically, Leningrad) architects and urban planners, who reproduced ideas of European and Soviet modernity not only in Dushanbe but in other cities of Central Asia. The current physical changes of Dushanbe manifest the post-colonial rejection of these imposed visions of modernity in Tajikistan and reflect the contemporary reimagining of Tajik identity and heritage. At the same time, based on my interviews, decolonization might not be the only framework to understand the process, which is driven by both state and private actors and is impacted by top-down state power, as well as an increasingly neoliberal approach to urban development, in which land becomes a commodity for capitalist redevelopment, which benefits the elites and regularly uproots and dispossesses thousands of city residents. This study articulates how Dushanbe residents navigate these material and symbolic changes while creating and negotiating new meanings around their transforming environment. Finally, this paper provides a crucial insight into the complex dynamics and relations of power and competing ideas around decolonization, modernity, identity and development in Tajikistan.