On the afternoon of February 26, demolition crews began work on dismantling a 23,000-seater soccer stadium near the historic heart of Bukhara.

The razing of this building is only the start.

Under a contentious project devised by the government of Uzbekistan and dubbed Bokiy Bukhoro (Eternal Bukhara), dozens of buildings are to be torn down across an area of 326,000 square meters, enough to accommodate 60 soccer fields.

A sprawling tourist center will be erected in that space. With Uzbek tourism officials laying an ever-heavier emphasis on promoting mass tourism, installing infrastructure to accommodate those vast numbers of visitors is viewed as a priority.

But the initiative has sparked anger, as the area under redevelopment is part of a so-called buffer zone around the hallowed historic section of the city. They argue that the project has been rushed through and will culminate in a kitschy architectural parody standing right next to the real thing.

Among the most vocal critics is Alerte Héritage, a non-governmental organization dedicated to the protection of Central Asia’s architectural cultural heritage.

“The only publicized project is catastrophic in every respect and above all in its design,” Alerte Héritage said in a statement on Facebook. “Knockoffs like these might look amusing in Las Vegas or Macau. But a fake ‘Orient’ in visual proximity to the historical core of Bukhara is doomed to … repel citizens and scare away tourists.”

Bukhara should by rights have some immunity from rushed development. The historic center of the city was inscribed among UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites in 1993.

The designation was granted, as UNESCO has put it, because of Bukhara’s “overall townscape,” which demonstrates “the high and consistent level of urban planning and architecture that began with the Sheibanid dynasty.”

Far from consulting UNESCO, however, Bukhara city authorities are proceeding against the organization’s explicit wishes. In February, a spokesperson for UNESCO’s office in Tashkent told a local news outlet that the government of Uzbekistan should refrain from implementing the buffer zone project pending more consultations.

This was an uncharacteristically firm position for UNESCO, which has come under fire from Uzbek activists for its frequently passive stance in the face of multiple crude redevelopments in and around important historical sites. 

Neither President Shavkat Mirziyoyev nor his daughter, Saida, who frequently position themselves as champions of preserving cultural heritage sites in Uzbekistan, has commented on the situation.

Local authorities reject the charge that they are engaged in vandalism. They argue that there was “no harmony” between the historic center and the buffer zone, which extends in its entirety to 3.39 million square meters.

“In recent years, with the development of the tourism sector, the flow of domestic and foreign tourists to Bukhara has increased significantly. The decision to build the Bokiy Bukhoro ethnographic tourist center was made to create comfortable conditions for residents of the old part of the city and reduce the burden [on their neighborhoods],” the city chief architect, Zukhriddin Mukhiddinov, has said.

Opinions among Bukhara residents are split.

“We Bukharans find all this [demolition] unpleasant to see. When I see this, it feels like the last days of Pompeii. My heart bleeds,” renowned photographer Anzor Bukharsky told Eurasianet.

Officials’ insistence on the need to improve the city’s tourism infrastructure fuels cynicism. 

“Since the morning, we have had no cold water. Let them improve the infrastructure in the city. That would be an improvement,” Bukharsky said. “Infrastructure is not these dollhouses. Infrastructure is things that should support human life.” 

Others welcome what is being sold as the modernization and reimagining of the city.

“The rebuilding in Bukhara completely suits me and my family. One might even say it makes me happy,” Abdulaziz, a 30-year-old city resident, told Eurasianet on condition that his surname not be used.

This project will make Bukhara more like “a new city existing in 2024,” Abdulaziz said.

Although, in fact, there is not much clarity about what the project will end up looking like. As is often the case in Uzbekistan, the authorities have made little effort to share its vision with the public.

What is known is that the redeveloped zone will feature four five-star hotels with many hundreds of rooms and a “multifunctional” Bukhara National Cultural Center which will host congresses and festivals. There will also be a musical fountain surrounded by cafes and restaurants. The total cost of the project is estimated at $470 million. Construction is expected to last until 2026.

To add just more to the murk and controversy, the project is being implemented by a company called Enter Engineering, which has been involved in many other major undertakings, including the Humo Arena ice-skating complex in Tashkent and the UzGTL synthetic fuel plant.

An investigation by RFE/RL's Uzbek Service in 2023 alleged links between Enter Engineering and Samarkand-born businessman Bakhtiyor Fazilov, who is in turn said by investigative reporters to be financially supported by business circles close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Among the 30 or so government buildings earmarked for demolition are the headquarters of the Bukhara regional government, an example of Soviet modernism conceived by the architect Richard Bleze, whose works also include some highly recognizable buildings in Tashkent. Other doomed buildings are the stadium, which is already being deconstructed, the regional prosecutor's office, and a local art school.

City authorities had promised that some of the municipal buildings, including the art school, would be moved to the site of another grandiose project: Bukhara-City. This $225 million undertaking, to be erected beyond the center, was conceived along the lines of analogous projects popping up across the country and was to include business centers, shopping complexes, restaurants, congress halls and residential buildings.

Most of the planned projects at Bukhara-City were supposed to be built in 2022, but little has been done since then and the site is now standing idle.

Students from the Bukhara Specialized Art School – the only one of its type in the province – underwent a costly refurbishment in 2021. Students are now forced to huddle in the disused dormitory of a former factory.

“Classes cannot be held in this building. There is a smell inside the premises. There are no conditions. How can we accept a new intake of students next year?” reads a statement posted on Potrebitel Bukhara, a Telegram channel focused on city affairs.