Tashkent Victory Museum

Timing is everything. A year after they announced its construction, Tashkent's Victory Park (G'alaba Bog'i in Uzbek) opened last year on May 9, 2020 - VE Day for the Soviet Union, to commemorate not only the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory over fascism, but also the Uzbeks who sacrificed and gave to the war efforts. By official count at the Shon Sharaf Museum, nearly two million soldiers from Uzbekistan fought, 538,000 died, and 158,000 souls never came home. Afterwards, millions of evacuees and orphans also started new lives in this country.

Embracing a gray, crappy and cold Sunday, we bundled up for a visit. The roar of airplanes, tanks, and machine guns played over the loudspeaker as we walked past hammer-and-sickle studded fencing. Sounds of battle lingered while we walked past bunkers and into the trenches. Visitors snapped selfies with statues of the fallen and a few others posed on top of T34s. The park was otherwise empty. Soviet music started playing over the speakers as we found our way into the museum that is built underneath a huge obelisk and 20 foot tall wartime heroes standing around it.

The staff were particularly skittish about video recording, but photography was fair game provided you paid the fee. Inside, we ran straight into video footage of Hitler on the big screen. We looked at weapons, mementos, scores of official paperwork, models, and thousands of military medals. Provided we stayed on the marked arrows, we walked through seven years of history. Homage was played too to the women and children who stayed to at home, supporting heir troops abroad with depictions of women farmers and manufacturers. The most memorable part was a reenactment of Nazis losing in battle, bodies splayed in agony and fear and defeat.

Outside, patriotic music continued to play when we walked past train cars. From a distance we had worried the train cars represented something else. They were meant for transporting patients, wounded soldiers, and the fallen coming home, complete with waving and smiling statues. There was an audible sigh of relief. For us it was only two hours of merely looking at war and it was exhausting. Living and breathing it 24/7? My heartbreak is visceral.