Etched In Memory At Botkin Cemetery

Uzbeks love to get graphic with their headstones. Black granite is best. Start with a shiny slab and start etching. You're going to want to use a special image, something that sums up everything about your loved one.

A portrait pose is nice, maybe feeling a bit casual?

Respect the mother, don't ruffle feathers in the family plot.

It's between the brothers.

More poses. Terrorize your ancestors who scolded you for smoking. Puff for eternity, no consequences! Group shot, tripping into etching styles found on money.

Wow. Worked to death? People are going to wonder what those funny objects are on the desk in about 50 years.

The Jewish Cemetery In Tashkent

Grim. There's a Jewish cemetery in Tashkent and it's a minor miracle it's still there, despite decades of Russian occupation and also in a Muslim dominated land. The cemetery isn't used anymore. The graves date through about WWII. Between death in that war and the establishment of Israel in 1948 offering emigration, Jews in Tashkent mostly disappeared.

The graveyard. Rough. Someone still does a casual maintenance job, sometimes burning away new brush growth, leaving behind a scorched earth and a hellish look to the place.

It's slowly dissolving back to the land. Graves are crumbling, plots are overgrown.

Occasionally one comes across a grave that has been restored, updated with a new plaque, stone.

A typical date of death, during WWII. Did Jews fight and die for Russia in the Great Patriotic War? Were they killed in-country? The Nazis did not make it to Uzbekistan. Many graves have photographs on their headstone.

A bit more elaborate, a grave marker with a life size bust of the person. An appropriate placement, looking over the cemetery.