Uzbekistan: Using Soviet Rules to Satisfy Capitalist Impulses

Authorities in Tashkent have begun taking stock of the city’s housing supply, seeking to establish who is living where they don’t belong. Provincial migrants get the boot. But what looks like a nod to Soviet-style control over population movement in Uzbekistan may be an attempt to renationalize private property. 

 

Police and officers from the feared National Security Service (SNB) are said to be seizing empty apartments to make them unavailable for domestic migrants; at the same time, they can crack down on wealthy landlords, reports the Uzbek service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

“The homes of those who have locked their apartments and have moved to foreign countries are being handed over to local administrations,” a government source told RFE/RL.

An official at the Tashkent city administration confirmed to EurasiaNet.org that authorities are indeed conducting a campaign to establish “who is living with temporary registration and who is living without registration” in Tashkent. “We have people living without registration and they should be identified, fined or sent back to their provinces,” he said.

Yet observers aren’t convinced the efforts are simply about keeping country folk out of the city. A building superintendent reportedly told journalists that officials are seeking out owners of apartments that are either empty or rented out and questioning those who own more than one apartment in order to impose fines or even seize the property. Last month, the government effectively prohibited the buying and selling of privately owned apartments by banning notaries from presiding over property deals. That move is seen as an attempt to exert greater state control over property management.