September 1 and school in Uzbekistan
As in previous years, students and teachers in Uzbekistan will not go to school on September 1 this year because the country celebrates Independence Day. However, you will find photographs here of Tashkent schoolchildren and school classes from fifty years ago and earlier.
I grew up in a family of teachers, so some photographs of students and teachers from the last century have been preserved in my archive. Personally, I only taught additional classes at school, but I spent seven years as a university lecturer back in the Soviet era.
School photographs from the war years
This is one of the oldest photographs in my collection. The years of the Second World War. The woman in dark glasses at the center is my grandmother, Anna Semyonovna Kozlova. The fourth student from the right in the first row later became the well-known Uzbekistani art historian Lyubov Alexandrovna Avdeeva — yes, the mother of Natalia Musina and grandmother of Timur Musin.
Tashkent schools of the 1940s–1960s
This photograph dates from 1948, a 5th-grade class. The girls were students of Tashkent Girls’ School No. 7 (at that time there were separate schools for boys and girls). The photograph was taken for a newspaper. Some are wearing Pioneer scarves, while others had not yet been admitted to the Young Pioneers. Everyone has their hands neatly placed on their desks, but the second girl from the bottom in the right row has her hands behind her back, once again proving that a love of freedom and independence is inherited through the genes. That is my mother, Lyudmila Ilyinichna Kozlova, who later became a historian and university lecturer and passed away in January 2023. When this article was written, she was still alive, and she liked the colorization effect applied to the photograph.
The year is 1967. Tashkent School No. 21. Some of the girls are already almost wearing miniskirts. Standing with the students is their teacher and homeroom teacher, Ilya Leonidovich Kozlov, my grandfather.
And here he is again, although the exact decade is unknown — probably the 1950s or 1960s. Standing next to my grandfather is the school principal. Perhaps someone will remember his name? It seems his surname was Barabash.
Knowledge Day and Uzbekistan
The late President Islam Karimov removed September 1 as Knowledge Day for schoolchildren in Uzbekistan, probably in order to distance the country even further from the Soviet Union, which he disliked. Children now go to school on September 2 or even later.
Karimov also abolished the 10th and 11th grades — all students left school at the age of 15 after the 9th grade and were forced to enroll in colleges or lyceums, which inevitably affected the overall educational level of the country’s graduates. The new president corrected this. But what about September 1?
Memories of school
The photograph at the top of this post was taken in 1968, although for some reason the date says September 29. Galina Shpulina (on the left) is a first-grader, while the second girl — me — still had one more year before school. The photograph was taken near an apartment building in the 8th quarter of Chilanzar.
I started attending Tashkent Secondary School No. 183 on September 1, 1969. I never had school photographs from that time, but I clearly remember how, on the very first day, my classmate Marina Khvalyova treated me to a fried pie from the school cafeteria right at our desk. It was delicious.
All photographs in this article are from the personal archive of Marina Kozlova.
Perhaps someone will recognize their relatives or loved ones in these photographs? Or maybe someone would also like to share memories and photographs of school and September 1? Write in the comments under the article.