Azamat Tokhtaev

Azamat Tokhtaev was born on 25 April 1946 in Tashkent. In 1964 he began studying in the evening department of the architecture faculty of the Tashkent Polytechnic Institute and at the same time started work at the organisation Orgtekhstroy under the architect Ye. A. Zhmuida. He graduated in 1970.

In the following years he worked at the republic's leading design institute, becoming its chief project architect in 1974. In 1977–1982 he was chief architect of a project and head of a workshop at the Republican Institute for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage, and in 1983–1993 chief architect and then director of the republican experimental scientific and restoration workshop under the Ministry of Culture.

His projects include a holiday home on Lake Issyk-Kul (1968), the music and drama theatre in Qarshi (1976), the interior of the Uzbek embassy in Moscow (1978) and the building of the Uzbekistan Banks Association (1998–2000).

In 1993–1998 Tokhtaev worked at the firm Uzinterqurilish under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1998 to 2000 he chaired the board of the Architects' Association of Uzbekistan, in 2000–2008 he headed the State Committee for Architecture and Construction, and in 2008–2017 he was its deputy chairman; he was relieved of that post by a presidential decree on 30 May 2017.

He received the title Honoured Architect of Uzbekistan in 1991 and was elected an academician of the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan in 1997. He was awarded the Order of Labor Glory (1999) and the Order of Friendship (2006), and in 2001 became a laureate of the State Prize of Uzbekistan.