Nearly a year ago, Gazeta reported that residents of Block 8 in Tashkent's Yunusabad district were trying to get a terrace built adjacent to building No. 29 at the level of first-floor windows demolished. The terrace was said to have been constructed to create a gastronomic street. Collective and individual appeals sent to various agencies — from the district hokimiyat to the prosecutor's office and the Inspection for Control in Construction and Housing and Communal Services — have yielded no results.

The identical responses that activist Olga Smolyaninova has received during this time show how agencies protect each other: they formally reply to appeals, but the complaint itself is ignored. The letters make no mention of the terrace at all. Instead, they explain that the Yunusabad district hokimiyat is carrying out construction and repair work in Block 8 in accordance with a special resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan 'On the development of infrastructure of mahallas in Tashkent and the creation of additional conveniences for the population.'

'The work being carried out at this location is based on a project agreed with specialists and urban planning bodies. Their impact on the safety of the population, living conditions, and the environment has been studied. Construction work is being carried out in compliance with conditions that prevent damage to residential buildings located in this area,' reads the response from the city Inspection for Control in Construction and Housing and Communal Services.

Smolyaninova has a stack of letters with almost identical content. There is no problem — therefore, there is no one responsible.

I speak with residents of first-floor apartments through windows that have barely opened since the terrace was built.

'Here is the children's room, and the neighboring windows are the bedroom. We are like on the palm of a hand, so we have to keep the windows closed all the time. At night, they knocked on the window several times, and during the day it became a walkway. In summer, it's like a tandyr — heat radiates from the metal covering, and when it rains, the sound is like beating on your head. Then water accumulates — there is no drain, no drainage system,' lists Yelena Pavlikova, enumerating the 'additional conveniences.'

In Zuhra Usmanova's one-room apartment, the only window faces the terrace.

'We keep the window closed because it's noisy at night. Passersby constantly peer inside. Due to the sign structure hung on the facade, the balcony gets flooded during rain — the canopy doesn't protect. Now everything will have to be broken and redone,' says the apartment owner.

Zuhra's 75-year-old mother is also struggling. The elderly woman says she cannot sleep because of the noise, heat, and the clatter of the metal covering that has loosened under the feet of passersby.

'My age is not what it used to be. I only sleep towards dawn. Just as I doze off, cars arrive, unload goods, carry them to the pickup point, the terrace rattles. They start work at 6 in the morning, at 7. People walk until 9, leave garbage: bottles, cigarette butts. We either clean up ourselves or pay the landscaping workers to sweep,' says the pensioner.

People are tired of fighting both the dirt under their windows and for their rights.

'It's all useless. We've been writing and running around since last year — no result. Nobody wants to work,' residents say.

Olga Smolyaninova says she does not intend to back down — it's impossible to live in such conditions. She is seeking the partial demolition of the terrace where the first floor is still residential.

'This is dirt, buried trees and manholes — why? Below, under the metal, is living soil, our former flower beds. We water the remaining trees with buckets to keep them from drying out. We are ready to plant bushes and flowers and water them ourselves — we need such beauty,' says the activist.

Work on creating the gastro-street in the block began in December 2024. The following spring, under the pretext of cladding the facade of building No. 29, the district hokimiyat obtained verbal consent from residents for landscaping the area.

At the end of June, without warning residents, workers began building a terrace with a metal fence on the site of former flower beds, adjacent to the house and at the level of first-floor windows. In response to residents' objections, representatives of the Yunusabad district hokimiyat advised those unhappy with the construction to 'sell their apartments.'

Source: www.gazeta.uz