Historic Centre of Shakhrisyabz

• Management systems/management plan (Lack of a comprehensive conservation and management plan)
• Management activities
• Housing; Commercial development (Major interventions carried out, including demolition and re-building activities)
• Legal framework (Need to reinforce the national legal framework)
• Human resources (inadequate)
• Financial resources (inadequate)

• Large-scale urban development projects carried out without informing the Committee or commissioning the necessary heritage impact assessments
• Demolition and rebuilding of traditional housing areas
• Irreversible changes to the original appearance of a large area within the historic centre
• Significant alteration of the setting of monuments and the overall historical town planning structure and its archaeological layers
• Absence of conservation and Management Plan

Not yet identified

Not yet identified

On 3 January 2019, the State Party submitted a state of conservation report, which is available at http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/885/documents. Subsequently a joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS High-Level Reactive Monitoring mission visited the property from 23 to 26 January 2019 (mission report available at http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/885/documents).

In response to the Committee’s requests for more documentation to allow a clearer understanding of the impact of recent major demolitions, the State Party provided the following data:

• Map of the general distribution of traditional houses, although without comparisons with maps developed before recent demolitions;
• List of streets/houses, but no formal inventories;
• 2018 map showing the general distribution of traditional dwellings;
• Map showing locations of demolished mahallah (dated 2014);
• Table of work on the restoration of monuments carried out mainly in 2014-5;
• Architectural plans of important monuments with Russian text;
• Chart indicating reduction of housing density between 2013 and 2015 and plans for further reductions by 2020;
• Description of the ‘current General Plan of the city’ and the Master Plan established in 1988.

Within the text headed ‘General architectural planning solution’, it indicated that there are plans in place to:

• Remove structures around monuments in order to allow them to be viewed from all angles;
• Create a tourist complex to include ‘historic sites’ designed in the ‘spirit of Eastern architecture’;
• Reconstruct one-storey houses along streets with shops, catering facilities and various community services, and reconstruct the main residential streets to serve the local population;
• Build traditional residential houses adjacent to the pedestrian road on part of the Urda mahalla and the northern part of the Kushkhovuz mahalla;
• Gradually replace modern materials on house facades.

It is also reported that in response to the Committee’ requests, work has begun on reducing the number of decorative light fixtures while gates and lattice fences have been removed.

The Committee’s requests for information on the following were not addressed:

• Progress with implementing the recommendations of the Committee and the December 2016 joint World Heritage Centre /ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission, notably regarding protection, management, and the tile decay on the façade of the Ak-Saray Palace;
• Capacity building related to the approach of the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) and Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) processes;
• Exploration of possible boundary modifications based on some of the monuments and the remaining urban areas that might have the potential to justify Outstanding Universal Value (OUV).

The 2019 Reactive Monitoring mission explored options for the potential recovery of attributes and whether a significant boundary modification based on some of the monuments and the remaining urban areas might the potential to justify OUV. The mission’s recommendations built on those of earlier missions but also took account of the fact that a new Presidential Decree of June 2018 had been approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan to protect all World Heritage properties in Uzbekistan, and that the 2014 Decree for the rebuilding of the historic centre has been withdrawn.

The 2019 mission considered two possible options: a selection of Temurid monuments, and the key elements of the Temurid urbanism including the urban fabric of the mahalla. The 2019 mission did not have the necessary documentation to explore in detail either of these proposals or how OUV might be justified. It recommended that if the State Party wished to explore either, it would need to undertake further research, documentation, and a restoration plan, all of which could take time, before the potential of each option to justify OUV might be assessed, as defined in the Operational Guidelines. Whether or not either of these options is progressed, in the best interests of what remains of the town, the 2019 mission set out recommendations to improve protection, conservation and management.

The state of conservation report provided by the State Party defines the basis of a number of projects in the historical part of Shakhrisyabz as a contract established in 2013 by the City of Shakhrisyabz on the basis of a 2006 City Master Plan. That the Presidential Decree for rebuilding of the historical part of Shakhrisyabz has been withdrawn in 2018 was not indicated in the report.

The recommendations of the 2019 Reactive Monitoring mission need to be set into the context of the 2016 Reactive Monitoring missions, the subsequent Decisions of the World Heritage Committee, the new legal framework of the Presidential decrees, the building moratorium that was put in place in 2016 and is still in place, the near completion of a building survey to recover traditional building techniques and socially revitalize the mahalla, and the State Party’s expressed commitment to try and recover lost attributes and make amends for past actions.

At its 41st session in 2017, the Committee (Decision 41 COM 7A.57) noted with concern the conclusions of the December 2016 Reactive Monitoring mission that “as the monumental buildings have now been disengaged from their urban surroundings, the heart of the Temurid town planning has been lost and, as the traditional dwelling houses in the core of the medieval town have been destroyed, the key attributes of the OUV have been damaged to such an extent, and for the most part irreversible, that property can no longer convey the OUV for which it was inscribed”, hence recovering sufficient attributes to justify the OUV identified at the time of inscription seemed impossible. The Committee was tasked with considering whether the property had “deteriorated to such an extent that it has lost the attributes of the OUV defined at the time of inscription and should therefore, in accordance with Paragraph 192 of the Operational Guidelines, be deleted from the World Heritage List”.  It nevertheless decided to recommend that the State Party should explore whether a significant boundary modification based on some of the monuments and the remaining urban areas might have the potential to justify OUV. The State Party did not suggest any possible boundary modification in its 2018 State of conservation report but, following further discussions at its session in 2018, the Committee recommended that the State Party invite a High Level Reactive Monitoring mission to “discuss with the relevant Uzbek authorities and stakeholders possible mitigation of the impacts to the attributes that convey the property’s OUV and/or possible major boundary modification to the property”.

The 2019 mission considered that the main threat to the property was the implementation of the 2014 Master Plan, ‘State Programme for complex measures for the building and reconstruction of Shakhrisyabz city’ that called for large scale demolitions and redevelopment of the central area of the Historic Centre. This plan was rescinded in 2018 but only after major demolition had taken place. Furthermore, the absence of a Management Plan integrated with the Master Plan of the city, in line with the approach of the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), and the inadequate legal protection and administrative structures, as well as inadequate documentation were other compounding factors.

The 2019 mission thus proposed two options that the State Party might wish to explore:

• The first option would entail focusing on the monuments representing the Temurid period. The State Party presented the mission with 13 such monuments from the previous total of 18. The mission considered that the two most significant issues to be considered with regard to a selection of monuments in their current conditions are their authenticity and their disengagement from their urban surroundings. Hence, actions would be necessary to reconnect them to the urban fabric and to improve or reverse recent conservation work in order to meet conditions of authenticity and integrity;
• The second option the mission proposed was to explore the key elements of the Temurid urbanism within the Historic Centre. The mission explored in a preliminary way the scope of these elements. They might include the main north-south and east-west axes intersecting in the Historic Centre with its main market, residential quarters representing a spatial and social hierarchy, city walls and gates, the main mosques, and madrassas along with the key monuments.. The mission considered that there might be potential to recover the urban street patterns in several parts of the property and to re-vitalize traditional building technologies. This option would need to be based on detailed research of the urban grain, the specificities of vernacular building traditions, and what has survived, and would need to be supported by measures to upgrade infrastructure and living conditions in order to ensure a living city, and the development of new protection, conservation and management systems.

The 2019 mission did not have the necessary documentation to allow thorough assessment of whether OUV might be justified for either of these options and suggested that much more work would be needed by the State Party in the form of research, documentation, conservation, and plans for a possible reversal of recent conservation work in the case of the monuments, before it might be possible to assess whether or not either of these options might have the potential to justify OUV. The report from the State Party outlines further planned work and has no reference to the rescinding of the 2014 Decree, indicating that the report may have been prepared prior to it. The State Party report also makes no reference to the moratorium on any new construction that is in place or to the 2018 Presidential Decree to regarding the protection of historic city centres suggesting inadequate documentation and accuracy in reporting.

The World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies welcome the new Presidential Decree of June 2018 to protect the World Heritage properties of Uzbekistan including Shakhrisyabz, and also ongoing changes to the administrative and management structures for the World Heritage properties outlined to the mission, and note that while opportunities remain limited, the positive actions that have taken place since 2016 might indicate a shift in the momentum for recovery.

Nevertheless, the situation the property now faces is complex. The World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies suggest that, should the State Party wish to explore possible options, the Committee agree to give a time limit of, for example, two years, to allow the State Party to explore possible options for a significant boundary modification or a new nomination.

At the end of this two-year period, the Committee would consider once again whether the property should be retained on the World Heritage List. Should adequate research and documentation have been undertaken along with compliance with the number of recommendations by the two missions, and if a clear potential to justify OUV has emerged, the Committee may decide to allow further time for a significant boundary modification or a new nomination to be prepared. An interim progress report would need to be submitted by the State Party at the end of the first year of the two-year period. For this path to be effective, the State Party may need to be encouraged to request upstream support. There would also be a need to retain a complete building moratorium in place in the property until a significant boundary modification has been considered and a Management Plan integrated with a city Master Plan in line with the HUL approach has been prepared and adopted.