The administration of the Chinaz district in the Tashkent region has released a video showing the district mayor, Sherzod Salikhov, giving instructions on assessing the level of improvement in local neighborhoods (mahallas). The video was posted on the official channel on July 27, but internet users drew attention to it on August 5, amid a scandal surrounding visits by various district leaders to residents' homes.

As reported by the newspaper, mayors, mahalla chairmen, and other officials, accompanied by police officers, are entering citizens' homes, inspecting yards, living rooms, and kitchens (some even checking inside refrigerators and pots). They are demanding that yards and house fronts be cleaned, tandyr walls whitewashed, and are threatening fines. These actions are explained as preparation for Uzbekistan's Independence Day, celebrated on September 1.

The newspaper recounts the district mayor's speech shown in the official video. The main reason for our meeting is that the 'Birlik' mahalla was chosen as a model mahalla. Now, if you concluded from the regional governor's words, choose one mahalla visible from the road, I also gave an assignment to the group from the administration, they said. Based on that assignment, we chose the 'Birlik' mahalla.

The 'seven' (the mahalla seven — ed.) still doesn't understand this 'Birlik'. I just went in, this [mahalla] seven is rated, not a single basil, flower, or seedling has been planted in front of it. Here we are coming in, you all see with your own eyes, the grass is waist-high. It hasn't been mowed, and the mowed grass is lying in piles, not taken away.

A frame from the administration's video. Can we call it a shameful mahalla or not? There is a slogan 'Shameful Mahalla'. Dilmurod, will you come today? Give it to me (takes a paper with 'Shameful Mahalla' written on it — ed.). Now you'll hang it, go. Hang it in a visible place, where people see it. The shameful mahalla is the 'Birlik' mahalla.

Also film this. From today, the 'Birlik' mahalla is a shameful mahalla, hang it up. A frame from the administration's video. There is a second slogan — 'Shameful Home'. I'm not saying this for nothing. Here, 40 assigned representatives, heads of enterprises and organizations, you are not going there out of idleness. Or you are not going there to play.

Our regional governor said correctly: if you get up at 6:00 in the morning, that doesn't mean the mahalla will become prosperous or the street will become prosperous. Agreed, heads of enterprises and organizations? You will put this up, first you go to enterprises, to your office, look around.

Based on our respected leader's instructions, our task is to go to the mahalla chairman's house second. I will ask one by one. Dilmurod, you will check everything, go to his house, and make me a folder. Here, you tell 40 mahallas, 40 assigned enterprise heads, I came, here is the mahalla chairman's house [say], he will photograph the gate, whether the gate is painted or not, whether the mahalla chairman has whitewashed his house or not — he will send it.

Are there flowers on his street? Not flowers, basil. Are there roses? What is his yard, his plot like? These four things will be sent to you as four pictures. After entering the mahalla chairman's house. Understood? We give one day, you collect, send to me. I'll talk in the morning. If he doesn't do it by tomorrow evening, I myself, on principle, will go and hang 'shameful home' on that home.

A frame from the administration's video. Or shameful home, shameful mahalla. He will also go to the shameful mahalla, see the mahalla, see the surroundings. Fine, there will be a deadline of one day or half a day. The deadline is no longer needed. He will hang 'shameful mahalla', take a photo next to it.

Agreed, heads of enterprises and organizations? You are not going there to play. In the morning, members of the 'mahalla seven' get up on time, from 6 o'clock they organize house-to-house work on the streets assigned to them in the mahalla territory. Measures are taken to organize hashar (community work) in mahallas, improve streets, whitewash walls, plant trees, flowers, and basil, and clean the areas around multi-story buildings, streets, ditches, and parks from garbage.

Thirdly, ensure full planting of high-yield repeated crops on household plots. In this, the mahalla chairman calculates how many fruit seedlings are planted on household plots and presents them to the mahalla banker... For reference: Sherzod Salikhov (born in 1982) was approved as the mayor of Chinaz district in February 2024. He graduated from the Tashkent State Pedagogical Institute and the Academy of Public Administration under the President. Over the years, he worked as head of a farm, agricultural firm, and also as deputy mayor of Tashkent district — first on agriculture and water issues, then on finance, economy, and poverty reduction.

Source: www.gazeta.uz