We had a leisurely walk across town this morning to find the stone Earthquake Memorial. Tashkent was seriously damaged by an earthquake in 1966. The memorial is very simple but poignant. On a block of basalt is the date and on another face of the cube a clock showing the time of the earthquake. The block is split as if by the earthquake and the bottom of this split is thought to be marking the epicentre. This is the point on the surface of the earth immediately above the origin of the quake. The memorial is backed by a stone and metal structure that commemorates the legions of people who helped after the earthquake and during the rebuilding of the city.
Adjacent to the Earthquake Memorial is the Crying Mother Monument which was constructed in 1999 to honour the 400,000 Uzbek soldiers who died in WWII. Some of the niches on the memorial that backs both sculptures houses their names.
We are waiting to catch the overnight train to Almaty in northern Kazakhstan this evening. The weather forecast tells us we should expect snow and sub zero temperatures.