In 2007 ISESCO (the structure of IOC) announced Tashkent as the capital of Islamic culture.
Every year this organization announces three cities to be the Islamic cultural centers. One of the cities must be from Arabic countries, another one from Asia and the third one from Africa.
On IX conference of the ministers of culture of OIC three cities: Bukhara, Cairo (Egypt) and Bamako (Mali) were chosen as Islamic cultural centers of 2020.
Actually Bukhara has been Islamic cultural center for centuries. It was named as “The dome of Islam”. There is great meaning in the selection of Bukhara as the Islamic cultural center of 2020. It is worth mentioning that thousands of scholars who have contributed to the world civilization were born, lived and studied in this city.
Azamjon Abdurakhimov
The teacher of Tashkent Islamic Universities
“Study of Islamic civilization ISESCO” department
This was the result of the state policy pursued by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev aimed at preserving, studying and popularizing the national cultural heritage.


The UNESCO World Heritage List includes: the Jemchug Residential Building, the State Museum of History of Uzbekistan, the Peoples’ Friendship Palace, the State Museum of Art of Uzbekistan, the Tashkent State Circus building, the Central Exhibition Hall of the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan, the National Palace of Cinema of Uzbekistan, the Chorsu market, the Cosmonauts metro station, and the Sun Heliocomplex.
These monuments represent a harmonious blend of modernist ideas and Central Asian architectural traditions.


Gayane Umerova, Chairman of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation and Chairman of the National Commission for UNESCO, stressed that the inclusion of these sites in the World Heritage List returns an important part of the modern architectural history of Uzbekistan to the international context of the heritage of the 20th century and the world modernist movement, and also imposes a long-term responsibility to preserve these buildings with maximum professional care, to ensure their integral role in the life of the city and to pass on knowledge about them to future generations.
B. Khudoyberdiyev, UzA