Archive · 2016 · From the print edition of Thursday 30 June 2016, Vol. 24, No. 7,294
Across IradHeritage groups protest villas on Khunuk Creek
Residents and heritage groups in Iyık Janyl say the old summer houses of Shahr-i Khunuk are being torn down for private villas.
IYIK JANYL — Heritage groups in Iyık Janyl have asked the city government to halt the building of private villas along the Khunuk Creek in Shahr-i Khunuk, saying the quarter's old summer houses are being demolished one by one.
Shahr-i Khunuk, on a bluff above the river on the upper side of the city, takes its Persian name, "cool town", from its summer air. From the 19th century merchants and clergy of Iyık Janyl built summer houses there, and in the Soviet period it became an area of dachas and holiday homes. Teahouses and orchards line the cold, fast creek, which is fed by springs and snowmelt from the Fergana Range foothills.
Since the 2000s many of the old houses have been replaced by private villas behind high walls. In a letter to the city government, the groups said that two more houses on the creek had been pulled down this spring and that the quarter, unlike the Old City of Talas, has no protected status.
A city spokesman said the new buildings had permits and complied with the building rules. The city did not name the owners of the new villas.