Twelve Valuable Trees Were Illegally Cut Down at the Ritz-Carlton Construction Site In Tashkent

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Twelve valuable trees were uprooted at the construction site of the future Ritz-Carlton hotel in Tashkent, despite Uzbekistan’s indefinite moratorium on the felling of green spaces, the advisor to the chairman of the National Committee for Ecology and Climate Change, Rasul Kusherbayev, stated.

According to him, the trees were removed under the pretext of construction, and the construction company actively obstructed video recording of the incident. It was later determined that the damage to nature exceeded 351 million soums.

“Yesterday it was established that on the plot allocated to the foreign company PD ESTATES LLC near the National Park, twelve valuable trees were uprooted without permission, in violation of the moratorium,” Kusherbayev wrote. “According to calculations by the Committee’s staff, the damage caused to the environment amounts to 351.23 million soums.”

Given the significant scale of the damage, the case documents have already been forwarded to the prosecutor’s office for legal assessment. “Now the word is with the prosecution,” he added.

According to the Unified State Register of Enterprises and Organizations, PD ESTATES was registered in November 2023 with a charter capital of 251.3 billion soums. Its primary activity is the development of construction projects. The company’s founders are Pasha Development (99%) and Pasha Holding (1%), and the company is headed by Baris Battal.

It should be recalled that in August 2024, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan agreed to implement seven joint projects worth a total of US$520 million. Under the agreement, Pasha Development is tasked with building a five-star hotel and a premium residential complex under The Ritz-Carlton brand, valued at 200 million US dollars, in Tashkent’s Chilanzar district.