With a major international summit approaching, authorities in Uzbekistan’s capital have taken to dismantling satellite dishes and tinted windows along a main city thoroughfare.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization heads of state summit scheduled for June 23-24 has sparked a frenzy of tidying up in Tashkent.

Over the past weekend, brigades of city employees went up and down Prospekt Kosmonavtov, exhorting local residents to take down balcony awnings, chimney stovepipes, satellites dishes or anything else that might offend the view of visiting dignitaries. In some cases, the city workers did the work themselves.

Prospekt Kosmonavtov, or Kosmonavtlar Prospekti to use its Uzbek name, is otherwise known as the “presidential road” and links President Islam Karimov’s city residence, Oqsaroy, to his country residence on the outskirts of the city.

Foreign-based news website eltuz.com featured a comment from one disgruntled resident, who identified herself as Sh. Kuryazova, as saying the embellishment works had disrupted her daily routine.

“I came home and switched on the TV and nothing appeared. Without warning, they had taken down the satellite dishes and cable TV connections. They were repaired recently after the heavy rains, and now the SCO has come along!” Kuryazova wrote.

An employee of an office along Prospekt Kosmonavtov told EurasiaNet.org that he and his fellow workers expect to be kept away from their jobs for the duration of the SCO summit.

The summit is upsetting all kinds of plans. College students in several major cities are being sent home early this year to make space for preparations. The expense also appears to be compounding the cash shortage in the country. An employee with a bank in Tashkent has told EurasiaNet.org that since Uzbekistan is experiencing a period of contraction in cash liquidity, the bulk available ready money has been going toward completion of roads and other infrastructure in preparation of the summit.