I used to think marble was just marble—you know, that cold expensive stuff rich people put in their bathrooms.
Then I descended into Oybek station on the Tashkent Metro, roughly 22 meters below ground level, give or take, and realized I’d been thinking about underground architecture all wrong. The thing about Tashkent’s metro system is that it wasn’t just built to move people efficiently from point A to point B—it was designed during the Soviet era to double as a nuclear bomb shelter, which explains why every station feels less like a transit stop and more like a palace you’d accidentally stumble into while fleeing an apocalypse. Oybek, which opened in 1991 just as the Soviet Union was collapsing (talk about timing), sits on the Uzbekistan line and connects to the O’zbekiston line, serving somewhere around 10,000 to 15,000 passengers daily, though I’ve seen estimates that vary wildly depending on who you ask. The marble here isn’t just decorative—it’s structural, functional, and honestly kind of overwhelming in a way that makes you forget you’re waiting for a train.
Here’s the thing: the marble at Oybek is Uzbek marble, quarried from deposits in the Nuratau Mountains and the Gazgan region. The columns are these massive things, each one polished to the point where you can see your reflection looking back at you, tired and slightly distorted. The walls alternate between cream-colored stone and darker veined panels that look like abstract paintings someone spent years perfecting.
When Socialist Realism Meets Subterranean Opulence in a Seismically Active Zone
Wait—maybe I should back up.
Tashkent sits in an earthquake zone. In 1966, a magnitude 5.2 quake destroyed huge portions of the city, killing around 15 people and leaving 300,000 homeless. So when Soviet architects designed the metro in the 1970s and 80s, they built it to withstand seismic activity, using deep-bore tunneling techniques and reinforced structures that could theoretically survive both earthquakes and nuclear blasts. Oybek’s design reflects this paranoia-meets-grandeur aesthetic: the vaulted ceilings rise maybe 8 or 9 meters high, supported by rows of marble columns spaced evenly down the platform. The lighting is recessed into the ceiling, creating this soft glow that doesn’t quite reach the corners, so there’s always shadows lingering near the edges. I guess it makes sense—if you’re going to spend your final moments before nuclear annihilation somewhere, it might as well be beautiful.
The marble work at Oybek is absurdly detailed. Each column is a single piece, not composite blocks stacked together, which must have been a logistical nightmare to install. The veining in the stone runs vertically in some columns, horizontally in others, creating a rhythm that’s almost musical if you stare at it long enough. Turns out the Soviets were obsessive about material consistency—they wanted each station to showcase local resources, so Oybek’s marble came from Uzbek quarries exclusively, no imports allowed.
Honestly, the place feels abandoned even when it’s crowded.
The Strange Ritual of Photography Bans and Underground Bureaucracy That Still Lingers
For years, taking photos in the Tashkent Metro was illegal—a holdover from its dual function as a military shelter. The ban was lifted in 2018, but even now there’s this weird tension when you pull out a camera, like you’re doing something vaguely transgressive. I’ve noticed that locals barely glance at the marble anymore; they’re checking their phones, adjusting their bags, living their lives in a space that tourists gawk at. Which is probably how it should be, I guess—functionality outlasting aesthetics, the palace becoming just another commute.
The benches at Oybek are marble too, which seems impractical until you sit on one and realize they’re surprisingly comfortable, or maybe your standards drop when you’ve been walking around Tashkent all day in the heat. The station connects to Chilonzor and Yunusobod districts, and during rush hour the platforms fill with a cross-section of the city: students, vendors, elderly women carrying massive bags of produce, businessmen in suits that look slightly too warm for the climate. The trains themselves are old Soviet stock—Metrowagonmash models from the 80s and 90s, painted in faded blues and whites, their interiors worn smooth by decades of use.
There’s a ceiling mural near the center of the platform, though calling it a mural feels too grand. It’s more like a geometric pattern rendered in colored stone—blues, golds, creams—arranged in a design that might reference traditional Uzbek textiles or might just be abstract Soviet modernism. I can’t tell, and I haven’t found anyone who can definitively explain it. Some sources say it represents the cotton fields of Uzbekistan, others claim it’s purely decorative. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
Anyway, the marble endures. It’s been down there since 1991, and it’ll probably outlast whatever comes next—another government, another era, another set of passengers who stop noticing the stone around them. I used to think monuments had to be aboveground to mean something, but Oybek sits there in the dark, polished and patient, serving its double purpose: moving people and waiting for a disaster that hopefully never comes.
