Like in seventh heaven: On a pleasantly warm late summer evening in September, around 1,200 visitors are sitting in front of the stage on the â exceptionally seated â Registan Square in Samarkand. The backdrop of the three massive madrassas, Koranic schools from the 15th and 17th centuries, with majolica facades and gleaming domes, is alternately bathed in yellow, red, blue and green by spotlights.
Before that, pianist Lang Lang, one of the living gods of classical music, delves into the 5th piano concerto âEmperorâ by Ludwig van Beethoven live at the grand piano. This could be interpreted as a reminiscence of Tamerlane, the founder of the Timurid dynasty, who conquered his world empire from Samarkand, just as ruthlessly as Genghis Khan before him. Today he is considered the forefather of Uzbekistan. The Chinese keyboard lion will be supported in the concert by the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of its lively conductor Alibek Kabdurakhmanov.
The concert, organized by the Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF), is of course sold out, and of course thousands of curious people crowd in front of the yellow barriers around the square, which are guarded by police officers. You can experience the concert, which is amplified by two loudspeaker batteries, without paying an entrance fee. And it's worth it, for the members of the Uzbek elite in the front rows of seats who arrived on special flights from the capital Tashkent or by express train, as well as for those hungry for education and experience in the cheaper seats behind them and the people without tickets. A camera drone hovering above the orchestra captures images for the screens at the edge of the stage and is only occasionally annoying when it accidentally buzzes too close to the horn section's microphones - just as annoying as some spectators who walk through the rows chattering with their cell phones, dismissive of concert conventions.
In the front, Lang Lang plays unwaveringly, at the height of his creativity, giving Beethoven a pull that draws the audience into another world. Together with the orchestra, whose musicians throw themselves into the piano concerto as if it were a matter of their lives, he adds George Gershwin's âRhapsody in Blueâ and the Chinese folk song âJasmine Blossomâ as a solo before he modestly retreats to the back row of musicians.
At the end of the concert, the national orchestra sings the demanding, oriental-influenced piece âTaronalar Bazmiâ by the Uzbek composer Anor Nazarov, in which traditional instruments such as the doira (frame drum), gâijjak (spined fiddle) and rubob (short-necked lute) can be heard. This perfects the memory of the Silk Road, which connected China with Europe from the 2nd century BC to the 15th century and found one of its most important trading oases in Samarkand - here in the center, on Registan Square.
The Chinese superstar's collaboration with the Uzbek orchestra symbolizes the state-controlled cultural opening of Central Asia to both the East and the West. But on this cozy Sunday at the beginning of September in the emerging country of Uzbekistan, which is as oriental as it is Soviet, it is not the only unifying event of the foundation under its chairwoman, the busy Gayane Umerova. The 41-year-old art historian and business economist, who studied in London and Tashkent, is the international face of Uzbek art and cultural tradition. The foundation was launched in 2017 by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Hours before the concert, Umerova opened the Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA), run by her foundation, the first contemporary art museum in Uzbekistan, in Tashkent's university district.
For Umerova, the opening of the museum is âa milestone in the cultural development of Uzbekistan.â President Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan's second head of government since independence, shaped the country with reforms that led to economic growth and a stabilization of the national currency, the som. Mirziyoyev is building his Muslim-dominated, constitutionally secular state in part on the achievements of his predecessor Islam Karimov. Cotton is now no longer just exported as a raw material; the rest of the value chain is increasingly being relocated domestically. Like his predecessor, Mirziyoyev rules as an autocrat and secures his power through the secret police - although he also relaxed censorship and released political prisoners. Since 2023, Uzbekistan, together with its Central Asian neighbors, has also been courted as a partner by the European Union.
What applies to society as a whole also applies to the work of the National Cultural Foundation. The agenda is extensive. Gayane Umerova's sphere of activity includes all activities at home and abroad with bilateral elements; she is practically the counterpart to Culture Minister Ozodbek Nazarbekov, who is responsible for culture at home. Umerova founded the Bukhara Biennale for Contemporary Art in 2025 and notes: "Interest is great everywhere. In Bukhara we had two million visitors, one million from abroad and one from Uzbekistan." The theme was âRecipes for Broken Hearts,â inspired by the legend of a doctor named Avicenna, who once nursed a lovesick prince with the national dish Plov so that he could eventually marry his beloved craftsmanâs daughter.
Umerova is also responsible for presenting Uzbek contemporary artists at the Venice Biennale or at art shows in Japan and China. And there are quite a few of them on the international stage. The spectrum ranges from Aygul Sarsen, the youngest participant in Venice at the age of 21, who is currently developing her art of painting with a scholarship from the foundation, to the author, painter and philosopher Vyacheslav Akhunov.
The conceptual artist, who was born in Kyrgyzstan in 1948 (his mother was Russian, his father was Uzbek), showed contemporary art in Tashkent in the 1970s, but only for three years before his show was closed - Leonid Brezhnev was in power in Moscow - and Akhunov was banned from traveling. As proof of the museum adventure, which does not appear in the history books of Tashkent, the artist has kept the official permit papers in his archive, which is hidden in an inconspicuous prefabricated building on the outskirts of the capital.
While art critics argue whether Akhunov belongs to late surrealism or the neo-underground, the 78-year-old contributed the show âInstruments of the Mindâ to the most recent biennale - a poetic reflection on cognitive processes and spiritual consciousness in the area of ââtension between archives, memory and time. An example: The artist erased the framed pages of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights until they were partially illegible, thereby showing how much the intentions of its initiators have faded since its adoption in 1948, the year he was born. Akhunov's paintings, drawings, videos and installations celebrate the political in aesthetics with humor. The exhibition in Venice, like the first exhibition at the CCA curated by New York-based curator Sara Raza, can be experienced at the Palazzo Franchetti until November 22, 2026.
The new permanent exhibition center CCA was elegantly built by the French studio KO into a gutted, renovated industrial building, a yellow clinker tram depot with a diesel power plant, designed by the German architect Wilhelm Heinzelmann. In 1912 he headed the construction department of the Turkestan region in the Russian Empire. Since opening, the CCA, operated by the ACDF, has hosted the first special exhibition, âHikmahâ (âWisdomâ), featuring works by half a dozen artists from around the world.
In the inner courtyard, Sara Raza placed the installation âColour of Silence, In Search of Truthâ, which the Uzbek ceramist Shokhrukh Rakhimov created especially for the opening. Seven colored, large spheres, inspired by the color and light theory of the 12th century Sufi master Najm al-Din Kubra, reflect the seven spiritual stages of inner maturation and the search for truth.
A monumental work of art by the Tunisian-Ukrainian artist Nadia Kaabi-Linke hangs in the depot's large hall. The floating steel structure, titled âFlying Carpets,â is on loan from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and is based on the exact dimensions of the carpets and shawls that illegal street vendors from Africa and South Asia use on the Ponte del Sepolcro in Venice to peddle souvenirs and which they can quickly roll up and take with them when fleeing the police. The title alludes to the flying carpet, which in oriental fairy tales represents freedom and magic, and to the wealth of Venice, which can be attributed, among other things, to trade with the Orient. The sculpture itself symbolizes the hard life of migrants, whose freedom of movement is severely restricted without papers and lives in fear of deportation. The tough, filigree sculpture was created for the Venice Biennale in 2011.
The CCA will not only function as a permanent exhibition space, but also as a research facility with a library, a cafĂ© and, with its protected inner courtyard, as a âthird placeâ for the district's students. This is urgently needed because most learners cannot find a quiet place either at the university or in their extended families at home. The population of the 35-year-old post-Soviet republic grew from 27 to 39 million people in the last twenty years. 60 percent of the residents are younger than 35 years. Umerova says: "The majority of young people want to be creative. That's why we're creating a meeting place for local and international creatives to work in an interdisciplinary manner."
The approach of the head of the foundation is also interdisciplinary: she closely links art and cultural development with local educational work. âThe library in the CCA is an archive library and is used for research work,â says Umerova. The museum is intended to attract not only students, but also tourists from all over the world who are interested in both contemporary art and architecture. Finally, Umerova is also the head of the Uzbekistan Agency for Creative Industries and Tourism.
"Tourism goes hand in hand with the development of the country. With progress in different areas, more tourists come, the country becomes better known and I hope that many guests also visit the museum," explains the art historian, who wrote her thesis on impressionism. She also likes works by the Russian and Uzbek avant-garde, whose works have found a home in the âLouvre of the Steppeâ in the Uzbek Igor Savizki Museum in Nukus, the capital of the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan. A place in the desert that no culture-loving tourist should miss.
In the 1950s, the Russian painter Savizki collected the works of avant-garde artists that were banned under Stalin, thereby saving tens of thousands of works from destruction. In addition to Savizki's own paintings, the archive includes those of his teacher Robert Falk and also pictures of Lyuba Popova, a key figure in constructivism. Works by around two dozen important avant-garde painters are also preserved there, including masterpieces by Kliment Redko, Alexander Volkov and Usto Moomin.
Also impressive is the complex of the Center for Islamic Civilization in Tashkent, which only opened in 2026, a monumental cultural project on a site covering more than ten hectares. Using the latest technology, the museum presents the history of Central Asia and the golden age of Islamic knowledge from the 9th to the early 16th century. The attractions include 60 historical Koran manuscripts, including the 7th century Mushaf of Uthman ibn Affan, which UNESCO lists in the Memory of the World register.
Samarkand has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site as a âcrossroads of culturesâ since 2001 - in addition to Registan Square with its three madrassas, this includes, among other things, the Bibi Khanum Mosque and the magnificent Gur Emir Mausoleum, in which Tamerlan, two of his grandchildren and his teacher are buried. The Shah-i-Zinda necropolis with its magnificent Blue Avenue, whose mausoleums and tombs mainly date from the 11th to 15th centuries, is also part of the list. With her foundation, Umerova bridges the gap from the past to the post-Soviet present. Programs range from the revival of traditional crafts such as ceramics and embroidery to contemporary art, from the World Heritage Site of Samarkand to the World Heritage Site of modernist architecture in Tashkent.
Ten outstanding modernist buildings were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in Busan in July 2026. The âHotel Uzbekistanâ is famous, whose intricate concrete facade adorns every second travel guide. Also among the unique items: the Chorsu bazaar, a domed building without pillars inside, where everything on the menu is still traded today, from fresh meat to vegetables and spices.
Also the Kosmonavtlar metro station (cosmonaut station), whose ceiling is reminiscent of the Milky Way, whose blue becomes darker towards the top and whose columns are covered with molten glass. Famous figures with a connection to astronomy are depicted on the sides, including Ulugh Beg, a grandson of Tamerlane, who achieved fame as an astronomer with the help of an observatory, Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova, the first man and woman in space, and Icarus. The station was built in 1984 and is reminiscent of the Moscow metro stations as magnificent underground buildings in the Soviet era.
Umerova's work is by no means exhausted with the new world heritage sites and the CCA. She opens exhibitions by Uzbek artists all over the world: "We work closely with partners from the Middle East and surrounding countries. Our agenda includes international art exhibitions, we have just opened one in the Center for Islamic Art in Doha, it's about antiques," says the head of the foundation.
