Obelisk in Kafanov Square, 1960-1962

Uzbekistan

Alexandrovsky Square (also known as Alexandrovsky Garden), formerly located at a major Tashkent intersection, held the remains of the 14 Turkestan Commissars executed during the Osipov Uprising in January 1919. Renamed Kafanov Square during the Soviet era after M.P. Kafanov, Chairman of the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, who was buried there in 1923, the square also became the burial place of other prominent figures like Yuldash Akhunbabayev, Sabir Rakhimov, Ha.. Read more »mid Alimjan, and A.L. Brodsky. A memorial and stele marked these graves. In the 1970s, the Uzbekistan Museum of Arts was built on part of the square, and the section with the graves was designated "Communards Square". An eternal flame was lit at the commissars' burial site in 1962. In 2000, their remains were moved to the Tashkent communist cemetery, and the obelisk dismantled. The square was redesigned and now features a monument to the Uzbek Soviet poetess Zulfiya.