PRAGUE -- The pro-Kremlin Nashi youth movement is demanding that the Uzbek ambassador to Russia keep a pledge and reinstall a Soviet-era war monument that was removed from downtown Tashkent last year, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reports.
Oleg Sokolov of the Nashi movement, who has held several solo rallies in front of the embassy, told RFE/RL that Nematov, as Uzbekistan's official representative in Russia, "should either restore the Soviet soldier monument or publicly admit he was telling lies."
Some 20 Nashi activists held a rally near the Uzbek Embassy building in Moscow on January 21 with the slogan: "Ambassador [Ilkhom] Nematov, tell us the date of the monument's return."
In November, all the monuments in Tashkent's 1973 Park of Military Glory -- including the Defender of the Motherland that is devoted to Soviet soldiers -- as well as Soviet planes, rockets, tanks, and other weapons, were removed.
Nematov was quoted by ITAR-TASS on November 25 as saying "all monuments will be restored and returned to their original place."
But on January 13, a new monument called "Oath to the Motherland" -- featuring a gold-plated statue of an Uzbek soldier kneeling to kiss the national flag and a praying soldier's mother in the background -- was unveiled at the place where the Soviet war memorial had stood.
An Uzbek Defense Ministry official told RFE/RL earlier that the new monument ends the "contradiction" that existed between the old Soviet monuments and a modern reading of Uzbek history and the nearby Uzbek Armed Forces Museum.
Oleg Sokolov of the Nashi movement, who has held several solo rallies in front of the embassy, told RFE/RL that Nematov, as Uzbekistan's official representative in Russia, "should either restore the Soviet soldier monument or publicly admit he was telling lies."
Some 20 Nashi activists held a rally near the Uzbek Embassy building in Moscow on January 21 with the slogan: "Ambassador [Ilkhom] Nematov, tell us the date of the monument's return."
In November, all the monuments in Tashkent's 1973 Park of Military Glory -- including the Defender of the Motherland that is devoted to Soviet soldiers -- as well as Soviet planes, rockets, tanks, and other weapons, were removed.
Nematov was quoted by ITAR-TASS on November 25 as saying "all monuments will be restored and returned to their original place."
But on January 13, a new monument called "Oath to the Motherland" -- featuring a gold-plated statue of an Uzbek soldier kneeling to kiss the national flag and a praying soldier's mother in the background -- was unveiled at the place where the Soviet war memorial had stood.
An Uzbek Defense Ministry official told RFE/RL earlier that the new monument ends the "contradiction" that existed between the old Soviet monuments and a modern reading of Uzbek history and the nearby Uzbek Armed Forces Museum.