Botkin Jewish cemetery

The Jewish cemetery is located in the northeastern corner of the City cemetery No. 1 (known as the cemetery on Botkin Street) and borders on the sites (maps) of graves No. 18, 21, 28 and 29 (see the diagram below). From the rest of the necropolis, the Jewish cemetery is now separated by a fence ^{[2] [com 1]} .

There is evidence of the seizure of a part of the cemetery located near the medical clinic ^[1] . According to other sources, there was only an attempt to capture ^[3] .

The cemetery began to function in 1927 ^[2] . Most of the graves date from the late 1930s to the 1940s ^{[2] [3] [4]} in connection with the Stalinist repressions in the USSR and the events of the Second World War ^[3] . On the territory of the necropolis, Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe (mainly Poland , the Baltic States and Romania ), Jewish soldiers of the Red Army who died of wounds in Tashkent hospitals were massively buried ^[1] . By the early 1960s, the production of graves ceased ^{[com 2]} .

The total number of graves at the Botkin Jewish cemetery is estimated at 3,000. All of them have a modest design ^[1] .

The necropolis is in a severely neglected state, since the age of the graves is estimated at five to eight decades, and the relatives of most of those buried left Uzbekistan in 1980-1990 and now live in foreign countries ( Israel , USA , Canada , Argentina ) ^{[3] [ 4]} .

The cemetery is intensively overgrown with grass and bushes, a large amount of garbage has accumulated on its territory. Between the graves there are no tracks. Many burials have no plates. A large number of tombstones are tumbled down, damaged or destroyed ^[1] , - both from time and as a result of acts of vandalism ^{[3] [5]} ).

Another serious danger is the alienation of the land of the cemetery due to its inaction. The necropolis is in contact with the Armenian burial site, as well as the courtyard of a private medical clinic. According to some information, persons connected with them are interested in seizing the territories of the Jewish section or have already partially held it. Khodjaakbar Rasulov, head of the civil service department in Tashkent, states that the only way to save the cemetery is to return the current status ^[1] .

Since 2001, a census of graves has been conducted at the Botkin Jewish Cemetery ^[4] . The Federation of Jewish Communities of Uzbekistan, with the participation of the Tashkent city administration, is making efforts for improvement, in 2004 it created a public committee to save the necropolis, but the implementation of the plans was severely limited due to financial difficulties. To date, all the remaining graves are numbered, a significant number of them have been identified. It is planned to create a small memorial in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and Stalin’s repressions, and a proposal was made to create a mass grave for unidentified remains. A fence was erected along the perimeter of the territory with Jewish burials ^{[1] [2]} .

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