Abstract

This paper examines the stabilization of Islamic minarets in Soviet Uzbekistan as part of the broader history of twentieth-century architectural conservation and engineering practice. Focusing on the work of structural engineer Emmanuel Gendel (1903–1992) and master restorer Ochil Bobomurodov (1922–1993), it analyzes the straightening of the Ulugh Beg and Bibi-Khanym minarets in Samarkand and the Gavkushon Minaret in Bukhara between the 1960s and 1970s. We argue that these interventions reveal the emergence of a distinctive Soviet approach to the preservation of historic monuments in Central Asia—one shaped not only by ideological frameworks of heritage policy but also by engineering experimentation, institutional infrastructures, and the material constraints.

Situating these projects within the historiography of Soviet heritage-making, the paper engages with scholarship that has interpreted restoration in Central Asia primarily through the lenses of political symbolism, nation-building, ideological reconstruction, or institutional formation of heritage protection agencies. While these perspectives have illuminated the political uses of monuments, they have often left aside the technical conditions that determined whether such monuments could survive at all. By reconstructing the engineering logic behind the straightening of leaning minarets, this study foregrounds conservation engineering as a historically situated form of technological knowledge.

Methodologically, the paper combines archival documentation of restoration projects, technical publications by Gendel, Soviet periodicals, visual documentation of buildings, and oral testimony related to Bobomurodov’s work in Bukhara. The comparison between Gendel’s centrally engineered interventions in Samarkand and Bobomurodov’s straightening strategies for Bukharan minaret demonstrates how conservation knowledge circulated and was adapted within Soviet institutional and regional contexts. By highlighting Soviet Uzbekistan as a site of technical experimentation and methodological innovation, the paper contributes to a more geographically inclusive history of architectural conservation and invites reconsideration of how engineering expertise, economic context, and local restoration masters intersected in the preservation of Islamic monuments in Central Asia.