"Novza" Metro Station (Hamza)

Hamza is the second of the two vaulted stations of the first phase, the first being Chilanzar. But while at Chilanzar the vault is delineated by twelve-meter arches and illuminated by golden chandeliers, here they took a different path, resulting in perhaps the most unusual lighting on the entire line. Hexagonal honeycombs are embedded into the vault. They glow, together creating a luminous pattern on the ceiling, and the flow of light from them is directed downwards, onto the platform. That is, the light source is not hidden in a cornice nor suspended as a chandelier - it has itself become the pattern of the ceiling. The honeycombs hold the whole hall: you look up - you see a grid of luminous cells, you look forward - you see how this grid recedes in perspective toward the end of the platform. The motif is repeated below as well. On the platform, identical hexagonal decorative pillars are installed with light indicators for the names of the following stations and the exit to the surface. A rhyme is created: a hexagon in the ceiling and a hexagon at eye level, with the second carrying precisely the information for which a passenger raises their head in the metro. Design and navigation here are done in a single gesture - a rare case for Soviet stations, where signs usually appeared separately and later. The station was built partly by closed and partly by open cut methods. In July 1975, Pravda Vostoka reported that the 50 Years of USSR to Hamza section was driven by underground methods, while the Hamza to Komsomolskaya route was being created by the open method and was nearing completion. It was on this open section, between Hamza and Komsomolskaya, that Tashkent metro builders first used industrial seismic-resistant lining made of monolithic volumetric blocks: Tashmetorstroy trust manufactured three sets of equipment on its own, and then the production of blocks was mastered by the Sergeli Reinforced Concrete Structures Plant. The average monthly installation speed of the lining reached 75 running meters of tunnel in double-track calculation - this was written by trust manager Pavel Semyonov. (Note: Russian source mentions 'ru' in target languages structure requested, but prompt says 'Include ONLY the languages listed in target_languages - skip the source language'.)

Hamza Hakim-zade Niyazi is a poet, playwright, and educator, one of the founders of Uzbek theater, who was killed in 1929. In Soviet Uzbekistan, he was a top-tier figure: the republic's main drama theater, a state prize, and this very metro station were named after him. It was decided to tell about him in the underground hall through panels. The theme, as a 1977 magazine formulates it, is the extensive public and creative activity of Hamza Hakim-zade Niyazi during the formation of Soviet power. And the technique turned out to be new for Uzbekistan: Florentine mosaic, performed for the first time in the republic by the Rassom combine. The author is the artist A. Bukharbaev. It is worth understanding what a Florentine mosaic is and why this is an event. Regular smalt mosaic is assembled from pieces of glass of approximately the same size, and the image is formed from many small spots - like pixels. Florentine mosaic is arranged differently: fragments are cut from stone of various breeds and colors according to the shape of the pattern and fitted closely to each other, without seams, so that the surface comes out smooth, and the color spots are large and accurate in contour. This is jewelry-like in labor intensity work, and its tradition comes from 16th-century Florence. Making such a panel for the first time in the republic is about the same as casting a stained glass window for the first time or laying a parquet floor for the first time: it is a question of mastered craft, not just conception. The station was designed by Tashgiprogor - the main design institute of Tashkent, the very one that after the 1966 earthquake became the headquarters for the city's restoration. The authors are architects A. Khurshudov, G. Chernov, and A. Loshkarev. The station bore Hamza's name until 2015 - longer than any other station on the line kept its Soviet name, as neighboring ones were renamed back in 1992. Today it is called Novza, after the name of the locality. The name has gone from the title, but the panel for which the Florentine mosaic was mastered in the republic for the first time has remained in place: the Tashkent metro has hardly been rebuilt.