Faces and Personalities of Soviet Central Asia
Creation of independent ethnic republics in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus, and an increasing acceptance of Russian national traditions, led to a celebration of national “types” in the later 1930s. These traditions, many of them based in Islamic folkways under attack by the atheist state, were in fact dying out at the time.
Scenes from Soviet Tashkent
Alongside the celebration of seemingly timeless national traditions, Soviet photographers tracked down evidence of cultural change in Central Asia. Nowhere were changing social patterns more evident than in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, in many ways a relatively modern city.